The author, a frontline healthcare worker during the Covid‑19 pandemic, recounts a summer 2021 journey with his teenage son through Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Venice, the Dolomites, Milan, and finally Monaco. The trip began as a relief from the pandemic’s toll on medical staff, who had been exposed to the virus daily with inadequate protective equipment.
While in Monaco, the author observed a gray‑haired man in a track suit emerging from a Lamborghini, carrying a porcelain doll, and later spraying a superyacht’s deck with a hose. This image became the genesis of his novel, The Red Dress, in which the narrator, nicknamed Nick after Nick Carraway, serves as a well‑paid professional aboard an extravagant yacht.
The narrative reflects on the emptiness of many superyachts, the contrast between luxury and the pandemic’s hardships, and the author’s own experience of feeling disposable as an essential worker. He notes that the pandemic exposed societal divisions and the fragility of collective action.