She begins an affair with an eccentric Irish philosopher, Wiggs Dannyboy, who runs a clinic for immortality research called the Last Laugh Foundation. She rejects the sexual advances of her co-worker Ricki. Meanwhile, in the present day, Priscilla, a part-time waitress and amateur perfumer, is stalled in re-creating the fragrance from the last remaining drops of a three-hundred-year-old perfume bottle in her possession. Pan encourages Alobar to continue East in search of the masters of immortality. Eventually he stumbles upon the stamping grounds of the pungent goat-god Pan, who is slowly losing his godly powers as the world turns toward Christianity.

After fleeing, no longer a king but only a man, he travels through Eurasia, on a newfound quest for the secret to longevity. The book was first published in 1984 by Bantam Books and later published by Random House.Ī powerful and chiseled 8th-century king named Alobar narrowly escapes regicide at the hands of his own subjects, from a custom of killing the leader at the first sign of aging. Orchestrated by a mysterious Irish philosopher, the past and the present collide when the characters come together and discover the unexpected path to life-everlasting. The story connects dueling perfumers in Seattle, Paris and New Orleans to a bottle of incomparable perfume created by two unlikely but defiant lovers of the past who seek immortality. The book follows two interweaving storylines, one in Ancient Eurasia and one in the present day.

Jitterbug Perfume is Tom Robbins' fourth novel and was listed on the New York Times Best Seller list in 1985.

Jitterbug perfume cover