Book 1 begins in 1925 on a beach resort on the French Riviera, where Mrs. Speers and her young daughter, Rosemary Hoyt, arrive on holiday. Almost 18 years old, Rosemary is astonishingly beautiful and attracts the attention of the others on the beach— some of whom recognize her from her starring role in the Hollywood movie Daddy’s Girl. She quickly makes friends with an attractive and fashionable group of Americans: Dick and Nicole Diver, Abe and Mary North, and their friend Tommy Barban. Encouraged by her mother, the young actress finds herself falling in love with Dick, who is charming and charismatic. Rosemary tells Dick so at a dinner party that the Divers host for an eclectic group of people staying in the resort. The evening is called short when one of the guests, Violet McKisco—a woman whom Rosemary considers vulgar—sees Nicole doing something shocking in the bathroom. This secret causes a great deal of drama and culminates in two of the guests—Mr. McKisco and Tommy Barban—having a duel the next morning.
Rosemary travels with the Divers and the Norths to Paris, where she is initiated into their surreal world of lavish parties, indulgent spending, and excessive drinking. Within a very short time, Rosemary witnesses Abe ruin himself in drink, sees a woman named Maria Wallis shoot a man with a pistol in broad daylight, and finds a “negro” man—Jules Peterson—dead in her hotel room. All of these events, however, have little impact on Rosemary in comparison to her love affair with Dick. Catching secret kisses in corridors and sharing breathless moments in the back of taxis, the two fall dangerously in love. One day, however, Rosemary witnesses Nicole in a fit of madness in her hotel suite. Realizing with horror the content of Violet McKisco’s secret from the Divers’ dinner party, Rosemary turns her attentions away from Dick, welcoming interest from another suitor, Collis Clay, instead.
Book 2 takes the reader back to 1917, when Dick—avoiding the war—first moved to Zurich as an ambitious and promising doctor. It is here that Dick comes to meet 16-year-old Nicole Warren, a beautiful young woman and psychiatric patient. Visiting his good friend Franz Gregorovious, who works as the resident pathologist at Doctor Dohmler’s clinic, Dick learns that Nicole was raped by her father as a child, and has since suffered with schizophrenia. Agreeing to lend his medical expertise to help Nicole’s recovery, Dick spends more and more time with the patient and, despite warnings from Franz, falls in love with her. To the initial disapproval of Baby Warren, Nicole’s sister, Dick and Nicole get married. Although they are madly in love, the first years of their marriage are strained by Nicole’s occasional manic episodes, which make it impossible for Dick to work. Dick often feels stifled and emasculated by the security of Nicole’s family wealth, and Nicole struggles psychologically after the birth of her two children, Lanier and Topsy.
Back in Paris, 1925, Dick’s affair with Rosemary ends abruptly after Nicole’s breakdown in the hotel bathroom. He decides to move back to Zurich with Nicole and the children to open a clinic with Franz. Nicole’s condition stabilizes while living beside the clinic, and for a short while the Diver family enjoys the success of Dick’s business and the beauty of the natural landscape there.
One day, however, upon receiving a letter that accuses Dick of being inappropriate with a former patient’s daughter, Nicole flies into a fit of rage. Unable to calm down, she grabs the steering wheel of their car while Dick is driving, sending it crashing off the side of the road, with the children inside. Deeply saddened, and slipping steadily into the grips of alcoholism, Dick decides to go away for a while.
Learning that both Abe and his father have died, Dick takes a short trip back to America, deciding it’s no longer home, and that he probably won’t return again. Afterwards, with hopes of seeing Rosemary, Dick heads to Rome. Some three years after their initial affair, Dick finds her to be a confident and successful young actress. He is jealous of her relationship with co-actor Nicotera, but Rosemary assures Dick she will always love him. The two try to rekindle their affair but—after having sex for the first time—realize that too much has changed.
Disappointed and bitter, Dick ignores his plans with Rosemary that night to get horrifically drunk with Collis Clay instead. He gets into a fight with a group of Italian taxi drivers and ends up at the police station, where he is beaten and jailed. Hearing the news, Baby Warren—entitled and enraged—goes to great lengths to get Dick released.
Finally, Book 3 traces the disintegration of Dick and Nicole’s marriage. As Dick’s alcoholism becomes increasingly problematic, and leads to his dismissal from the clinic, the Divers move back to the French Riviera. Here, Nicole initiates an affair with Tommy Barban, whom she eventually marries. Dick’s desperate decline is crystalized when Rosemary pays a visit to the Divers, and Dick is forced to accept the loss of both his loves. The story ends with a tragic portrayal of Dick—who moves back to The States after his separation from Nicole—living a quiet, lonesome life as a failed doctor in some small American town.
