Magenta is an indirect sequel to The Horse-Head Nebula and Blackfoot. Tom has turned 20 and has travelled the world at sea with Eva when he, in the spring of 1961, goes ashore in France. In the course of some hot summer months in Paris, he conquers the city from Hotel Oradour in the seedy area around Rue Magenta, garbed in a white suit and cap, shades and mosquito boots. Eva is soon forgotten in favour of Cholon who runs the hotel and the girls Tom is set to watch over. This is an uninhibited, generous and funny tale, dirty and beautiful, but it is also a sensitive bildungsroman about a twenty-year-old facing reality.