[1][2] A postmodern retelling of the gothic horror novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, the narrative follows the life of Bella Baxter, a surgically fabricated woman created in late Victorian Glasgow.

The novel itself is epistolary, being composed of a fictional novella entitled Episodes from the Early Life of Archibald McCandless M.D., Scottish Public Health Officer, several extended letters, a spread of original illustrations, as well as an Introduction and Critical Notes.

The bracketing Introduction and Critical Notes feature a meta-textual component, in that they simultaneously exist in the novel’s fictional canon, but are also credited to real-life author Alasdair Gray.

While designed to be Baxter's companion, her sexual appetite causes her to pursue other men, including McCandless and a foppish lawyer named Duncan Wedderburn, with whom she elopes and embarks on a hedonistic odyssey around Europe, Northern Africa, and Central Asia.

These fictitious historical documents are prefaced with an introduction by one Alasdair Gray, who presents himself as the editor of the following text, and relates the "discovery" of the papers by his real-life friends, Michael Donnelly and Elspeth King.