He was famous, but he was the only one who knew it. But never mind, he had his whole life ahead of him. Philipp, poised between school-leaving and professional training, dreams of becoming an actor and spends the summer working as a beach attendant. Real life serves as a dress rehearsal for Philipp's first season. With a fertile, unencumbered imagination, he turns a Zurich lake bathing spa into a colourful and exciting stage, a scene in which figures of our contemporary society, stripped of their disguises, are revealed in their true colours. The author writes in a vivid, pithy language and with an enigmatic wit which injects poetry into the irony. Philipp's first season - »It's not for nothing that I have just turned twenty« - is also the setting of a tender love story.