Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man relates the bawdy, picaresque misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American studying at Trinity College, Dublin. Time magazine called Dangerfield "one of the most outrageous scoudrels in contemporary fiction, a whoring, boozing young wastrel" and predicted correctly that readers would come to love him for his "killer instinct, flamboyant charm, wit—and above all for his wild, fierce two-handed grab for every precious second of life."

Sebastian is a source of inspiration for many of us.