In the late 1800s in Trieste, Italy, a medical student named Sigmund Freud was assigned to investigate the testes of the male eel, postulated to be loops of white matter festooning the body cavity.

The narrator is August Brill, an elderly book reviewer living out his days and sleepless nights in a house in Vermont that he shares with his daughter, Miriam, and granddaughter, Katya.