Written in first person directly to the reader, it's about a writer, a good, successful, but second-rate writer, whose life has come to such a pass (partly through her own doing) that she's on the run. It's a letter to herself describing in chatty witty detail all she sees and feels as she free falls into hell.

She's come back to the only town in her ambitious life that meant anything to her. A small town in Vermont in which stands an old hotel she remembers as magical. River House has come down in the world, just as she has, and together they weave themselves into a fantastical knot of other people's talent, first rate talent, or first rate ghosts.