The novel is contextualized at the time of the 1968 Movement in Mexico, specifically in the army invasion of the Ciudad Universitaria, on 18 September 1968, which preceded the Tlatelolco massacre of 2 October of the same year occurred at the end of the government of Mexican President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz.

Tall, thin, blonde, and old enough to actually be their mother, she's a Uruguayan exile living illegally in Mexico City since the 1960s, lending a maternal hand to those in need (even her forename means "Help" in Spanish), doing odd jobs for old writers and at the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature.

She becomes famous as the sole person who symbolically resists the army's 1968 invasion of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) two weeks before the now infamous Tlatelolco massacre (2 October) – she hides in a fourth-floor lavatory cubicle "for thirteen days" from 18 to 30 September.

However, as Francisco Goldman has noted, Amulet "sings an enthralling and haunting ode to youth, life on the margins, poetry and poets, and Mexico City.

"[citation needed] Amulet features some other characters from The Savage Detectives: mainly the author's alter-ego, Arturo Belano, and his friend Ernesto San Epifanio, but also Laura Jáuregui, Felipe Müller, and Ulises Lima.