Mickey Sabbath’s long-time mistress, Drenka Balich, tells him that he must stop seeing other women or their affair will end. Sabbath is an arthritic, failed puppeteer, publicly disgraced for sexually harassing a college student. He is married to Roseanna, an art teacher with an alcohol addiction, and lives in Madamaska Falls, Massachusetts. Drenka runs a nearby inn with her husband, Matija, and carries on affairs with many men. Drenka and Matija fled communism in Croatia and have a son, Matthew, who is a local police officer. Matthew refuses to take over the inn, angering Matija, and driving a wedge between Drenka and her husband.

Sabbath and Drenka have a secret place in the woods, called the Grotto, where they go to meet. Their affair is a relationship in which both can explore their fantasies and Sabbath occasionally even pays her for threesomes. He often thinks of his mother when they have sex, because his happy childhood ended when his older brother, Morty, died in World War II. After his death, his mother crumbled and began talking to Morty’s ghost. Now, decades later, Sabbath talks to his mother, whose ghost follows him everywhere.

Sabbath realizes that as they age, both he and Drenka need the affair to keep excitement in their lives.