[citation needed] The main character lives in a converted hotel in Hollywood, where he works as the film critic for a weekly newspaper.

Amnesiascope focuses mostly on the protagonist's relationship with Viv, a sexually adventurous, committed artist, with whom the narrator works on the making of an avant-garde erotic short film.

The narrator also has to deal with different factions at the paper, the various time zones he experiences driving through LA, the complexities of making a pornographic film, and his feelings of guilt after writing for his paper a review of The Death of Marat, a non-existent film by Adolphe Sarre, a non-existent director, which takes on a life of its own.

The novel has a distinguished surrealist atmosphere, strengthened by the simple fact that Hollywood is a dream factory that produces imaginary stories.

Much of the plot describes and analyzes the complex and contradictory relation of the protagonist with the most important women in his life; but at least two of them, Viv the avant-garde director and Justine the failed actress, belong to the cinema industry that is a metaphor for the imagination and the dream side of the human mind.