In final years of the communist Hungarian People's Republic, writer Andor Weér–the novel's narrator–lives in dysfunction with his mother, Rebeka Weér. Rebeka is a former celebrated actress who has not left their Budapest apartment in fifteen years. Andor's father was a theatre critic and a former member of the ÁVH secret police who defected to the West after the 1956 revolution. Andor's twin sister, Judit, a talented violinist, fled Hungary fifteen years earlier. This betrayal and Rebeka's inability to lure Judit back to Hungary caused the authorities to deny Rebeka leading stage roles. Rebeka performs a symbolic burial of Judit and refused to go outside of their apartment. Judit committed suicide, but Andor keeps her death a secret and sends letters to Rebeka in her name. Rebeka is a crazed woman who has a strong emotional hold over Andor that verges on Oedipal. He wishes to escape his mother's maniacal control, but worries about leaving her alone. Andor quickly falls in love with Eszter Fehé, a troubled young Romanian woman with a mysterious past. The two met on the Liberty Bridge. Eszter helps Andor type his works and get a publishing deal for his book. The editor of the publisher is an older woman who Andor eventually begins a crude sexual and Oedipal relationship with. He later learns the woman was his father's mistress when his father was an agent of the secret police. Andor's love for Eszter is further complicated by her past. The novel begins with Rebeka's funeral, and progresses through the past with a nonlinear narrative structure.