In Under the Autumn Star, Nobel prize-winning author Knut Hamsun writes a novel magically permeated with the air and light of fall. The narrator, Knut Pedersen (Hamsun's real name) first joins forces with Grindhusen, a man blessed with the faith that "something will turn up," and later with Lars Falkenberg, whose dubious talents include the tuning of pianos.

Knut and Lars fetch up as workmen on the estate of Captain Falkenberg (no relation to Lars), with whose wife each falls or fancies himself in love - though this does not prevent either from doing "night duties" in other quarters. In time, Knut is laid off and, in futile pursuit of the woman with whom he is by now helplessly infatuated, finds himself sucked back into the city life he had fled.