The six members form a literary group, all inspired at one point in their lives by Nabokov's life and works, and share their personal stories which they call speak-memories.

The novel begins with one member of the literary group, Marco Gianelli, giving a short eulogy for the deceased, who remains without identity at this point.

In between the meetings, Cass visits landmarks with different people, such as going to the Pergamon Museum with Marco, aquarium with Victor and the S-Bahn with Mitsuko.

At the first meeting, Victor tells his speak-memory of how he was born in New Jersey and of his overprotective mother and his father who worked in an umbrella factory.

He speaks of how he was traumatized as a boy by the Tokyo subway gas attacks of 1995 in his city, how his older brother constantly taunted him and how he enjoyed playing chess with his grandfather.

His father died aged thirty-seven, the same day when Gino himself was born, from injuries received from the bombing of the Bologna Centrale train station.

After Marco's story, Victor jokes that these meetings are therapy sessions, leading to tensions between him and Gino, who becomes aggressive in response.

Finally Cass presents her own speak-memory, telling of how she grew up in Broome in a house which had once been a quarantine station, how she used to fight with her three older brothers and how she was sent to boarding school as a child.

[2] The Sydney Morning Herald observed that Jones included many Nabokovian elements in her novel, such as one character having the same birthday as the Russian author[3] The book has an average rating of 3.43 stars out of 5 on Goodreads.