The novel opens with the story of Cambodian women who developed psychosomatic blindness from the overwhelming grief of wartime trauma.

The narrator attends a memorial service for her recently deceased friend, a fellow writer, and leaves early.

Wife Three meets the narrator in a café and reveals that the deceased friend had adopted a Great Dane named Apollo.

Wife Three asks the narrator to take Apollo, explaining the dog has been pining for his dead owner in a kennel.

Apollo arrives at the narrator's New York apartment and largely ignores her, though she views the dog as a piece of her friend.

The building superintendent tells the narrator she cannot keep the large dog, as animals are not permitted in the apartment block.

A veterinarian examines Apollo and warns that the dog's arthritis means he is unlikely to live much longer.

Building management sends the narrator an official letter demanding that Apollo be removed from the premises immediately.

The deceased friend's three wives stage an intervention, urging the narrator to give up Apollo and save her rent-controlled apartment.

The narrator obtains an official service animal accreditation for Apollo to prevent eviction from her rent-controlled apartment.

The building management agent drops the eviction case, allowing the narrator and Apollo to remain in the apartment.

The narrator's therapist suggests that her complicated grief points to her having been in love with her deceased friend.

The narration shifts to third person, revealing the story has been written by a woman whose friend survived a suicide attempt.

The woman reveals to her friend that she has transformed his real dachshund into a massive Great Dane named Apollo in her novel.

The narrator and Apollo move to a house by the seaside after the apartment stairs become too difficult for the aging dog.

The narrator's close friend and mentor kills himself, leaving her struggling with grief and missing deadlines. When the friend's widow asks the narrator to take his adopted Great Dane, Apollo, she accepts despite her apartment's strict no-dogs policy. As warnings pile up from building management, she fights to keep Apollo by obtaining an official service animal accreditation. Through therapy, she confronts the uncomfortable possibility that her relationship with the dead man was more than merely platonic. The narrative then reveals itself to be a novel within a novel, written by a woman processing a friend's near-suicide rather than actual death. The narrator and Apollo ultimately move to the seaside, where she finds hard-won peace with her loss.

The headline events of grief, Apollo, and the novel's central revelation.

The narrator reflects on her deceased friend's writing habits and begins missing her own professional deadlines because of grief.

While processing her grief, the narrator recalls the lives and deaths by suicide of various famous writers she has admired.

The narrator initially refuses to take Apollo but offers to ask around her network for a more suitable home.

Apollo's mysterious origins are established: he was found in a city park without a collar or identification tags.

The narrator recalls teaching a writing workshop at a treatment center for survivors of human trafficking.

The narrator rereads a memoir by J.R. Ackerley and begins to see parallels between Ackerley's life and her deceased friend's.

A stranger chides the narrator for keeping a dog as large as Apollo cooped up in a small city apartment.

The narrator recalls the painful and disjointed experience of having one of her cats euthanized at the vet's office.

In a writing workshop, the narrator listens to a student named Carter explain why he removes all sexual content from his stories.

Wife One tells the narrator she cannot believe anyone could have dumped a dog that size on her.

The narrator reads aloud to Apollo, and the dog's mood visibly improves when she reads from Rilke's letters to a young poet.

Apollo picks up a book in his mouth and places it beside the narrator, seemingly requesting she read aloud.

The narrator selects The Oxford Book of Death, with its chapters on suicide and animals, as her recommendation for a radio show.

The penultimate chapter closes with a single page bearing only the words 'DEFEAT THE BLANK PAGE.'

At the seaside, the narrator is overcome with emotion and calls out her dead friend's name: 'Oh, my friend, my friend!'

Alongside the main plot, the narrator grieves through literary reference and quiet observation, recalling famous writers who died by suicide and finding parallels between her friend's life and the work of J.R. Ackerley. She teaches writing workshops, reflects on past losses including the deaths of her cats, and navigates complex dynamics with the friend's first wife. Her growing bond with Apollo is captured in intimate scenes: reading Rilke aloud while the dog listens, and watching Apollo present a book for her to read. The penultimate chapter ends with the stark rallying cry 'DEFEAT THE BLANK PAGE,' a call to keep writing through grief. The final event captures the narrator's rawest moment of longing as she calls out her dead friend's name at the water's edge.

The quieter moments, literary reflections, and secondary bonds that color the story.

Wife Three confides that the deceased friend's depression had never been worse than in the six months before his death.

The narrator's heart breaks hearing that Apollo has been pining in a kennel, and she agrees to take him home.

The narrator decides that Apollo must fall in love with her rather than continue mourning his dead owner.

The narrator stands in the middle of traffic during walks to shield Apollo from passing cars, putting herself in danger.

The narrator researches canine depression and plays various music for Apollo, but none of it seems to have any effect.

The narrator meets Wife One and learns the friend had grown dismayed by careless reading and lost faith in the purpose of fiction.

The narrator receives a final warning from her landlord: Apollo must be removed or she will face eviction.

On the anniversary of the friend's death, the narrator considers whether showing Apollo a video of his former owner might be cruel.

The narrator watches Apollo sleeping and feels a surge of contentment, deciding that nothing is going to separate them.

The narrator begins attending therapy sessions and brings Apollo with her, privately describing the arrangement as couples therapy.

The narrator tries to tell her therapist about a rendezvous with her friend in Berlin but breaks down crying each time she begins.

The narrator confesses to Apollo in front of her therapist that she is beginning to feel a little better.

A party guest asks if the narrator is the one who is in love with a dog, prompting deep self-reflection.

The man tells the woman her novel about his near-suicide feels like a betrayal and accuses her of being sleazy.

The narrator admits she still isn't sure whether she was in love with her friend but has found peace with his death.

The turning points of the novel begin with the revelation of the friend's severe final depression and escalate through the narrator's resolve to keep Apollo at any cost. She faces mounting landlord pressure, a painful anniversary of her friend's death, and the persistent weight of grief, yet refuses to relinquish the dog. Therapy becomes a space for breakthrough: the narrator frames her sessions with Apollo as 'couples therapy' and breaks down completely when attempting to describe a past rendezvous with her friend in Berlin. The novel within the novel reaches its emotional crisis when the man whose near-suicide inspired the book calls it a betrayal. The narrator's final reflection — uncertain whether she was ever truly in love with her friend, yet at peace — closes her long arc of grief and acceptance.

The pivotal decisions, emotional breakthroughs, and hidden truths that shift the story's course.