When Jacob Levy retired from the Department of English at McGill University, he focused on writing another novel in a new environment. He moved to Toronto, and before long, found he needed double bypass surgery. Abby, his nurse, looks after him at home. As he slowly recovers, Jacob recalls his parents who were from the Jewish community of Salonica and escaped as the Nazis invaded and began sending its population to Auschwitz. Abby and Jacob fall in love and live together. Despite this, Jacob suffers from constant restlessness as the future appears uncertain.Jacob finds two regulars at the Waterman Bakery Café also working on novels and forms a friendship with them. One of his new friends, Jake, lived through a kidnapping. Although Jake escaped, one of his kidnappers returns to kill him. He enlists Jacob and another to help him. One evening, a confrontation takes place, and the kidnapper is killed. Jake drives them all to Port Hope where they dump the body in Lake Ontario at West Beach. The police find the body and trace the dead kidnapper back to Jake. Jacob waits for the imminent arrival of the police unable to shake off the restlessness that seems to follow him.