Kundera's novel was banned in Czechoslovakia but accalaimed in France and the United States. The story takes a comic but chilling look at the peaceful, self-contained world of a fertility spa, which becomes the setting for a compelling psychological drama when famous jazz trumpeter Klima receives a telephone call telling him that health-resort nurse Ruzena is pregnant, following a night with him. As he tries to persuade Ruzena to have an abortion other lives are drawn into their delicate conflict. The resulting ironies are very funny, and as the story moves towards its denouement, the unsparing clarity of Kundera's insight and the countless twists of his narrative illuminate the ambiguity at the core of life and the intricate strategies by which we live.