This haunting story, beautifully told by an unnamed narrator, depicts a world where things simply disappear. This happens on an island -- conveniently ferries have already disappeared -- and the trapped resident population has generally accepted the disappearances. Except for those who haven't forgotten the items that have disappeared. Those individuals are pursued by the Memory Police.

The narrator, a novelist, tries to protect her editor from the Memory Police by hiding him in small room she builds with a friend, "the old man." Most of the novel centers on the relationships that develop between these three characters. They build a deep friendship and, in the case of the novelist and her editor, become lovers. Their affection for each other grows over time despite the disappearances that intrude more and more into their lives. This is a sharp contrast to the relationship depicted by the novel that is being written by the narrator. In her novel, two lovers become more estranged over time until the narrator within the novel first loses her voice and then disappears altogether.

The novel's simple prose and straightforward style contrasts with the complex themes -- how people cope with loss, what is hope, how relationships are developed and how they end. Ultimately, it concludes that our memories and ourselves are intertwined to the extent that when we lose our memories, we lose our selves.