In this satirical novel of romance and discontent, Elizabeth is an unhappily married woman whose lover has recently killed himself. Unbeknownst to her, her apparently ineffectual husband, Nate, has found the resolve to leave her and run off with Lesje, his paleontologist mistress. Running wordlessly through everyone's consciousness is the ghost of Elizabeth's dead lover, as well as the overwhelming suspicion that, in the end, happiness is forever out of reach.