The novel dissolves into fiction as Ellis describes a liaison with an actress named Jayne Dennis, whom he later marries, and with whom he conceives a child.

Ellis and Jayne move to fictional Midland, an affluent suburban town outside New York City, which they no longer consider safe due to pervasive terrorist acts in a post-9/11 America.

[2][3] Strange incidents start happening on a Halloween night, some involving a Terby doll belonging to Ellis's fictional stepdaughter Sarah.

At various points, characters and events from Ellis' novels appear to intersect his real life, although he is largely unaware of this thin veil between his reality and his fiction.

[7] Ellis told the Manchester Evening News that the Terby "is based on a Furby but also there was this bird-like doll that my older sister had and I wrote a short story about it when I was 7 or 8.