At first the novel seems like a peep-show into an adulterous affair. She is married with a child, a job, a nanny, and a husband who parades his mistress in her face. She is severely conflicted about everything and is contemplating divorce. He is suffering the alienation of an American in England. This talk is the subject matter of the book. Occasionally, they stray into other pet Roth subjects like fathers, mothers, misogyny, his work, and the Jews.

But then the talk shifts to other female voices: a jet-setting Czech prostitute who wants Roth to help her write a novel; a 33-year old Polish woman with a child who also wants him to help her write; an English woman from his past in New York who is suffering from cancer; his wife who accidentally discovers his notebook with all these conversations. Roth defends his notebook, saying that all the women recorded within are fictional characters. He sums it up as, But then I am not the only man who thinks about imaginary women while in the bedroom with the woman he regularly sleeps with.