The first-person narrator of the novel is never named. Most of the prose seemingly addresses a deceased friend who has recently committed suicide. At the end of the novel, it becomes clear that that the narrator is not actually a person, but the main character in a woman’s book. The woman, whose friend recently tried and failed to commit suicide, has chosen to write a book in which she imagines what would have happened if the man had succeeded. The unnamed narrator becomes an emotional proxy for the imagined grief that the woman is feeling.

The emotions the narrator feels are no less poignant because she is a creation within a creation; the relationship which she builds with Apollo the dog is no less authentic. Indeed, the relationship with Apollo comes to define the narrator. At first, she is an unwilling owner. Her apartment block does not permit tenants to own dogs and she cannot imagine finding time in her life to car for such a large and demanding creature—she confesses that she prefers cats—but she feels an obligation to her deceased friend, to whom she never said goodbye.

The bond which the narrator forms with Apollo becomes close to the point of being destructive.