Bernhard, an actress-comedienne whose brassy humor attracts a cult-like following, here offers a semiconfessional view of her life’s landscape. Childhood memories of her father, a doctor, and her mother, an artist, are warmly rendered in scenes of the Jewish family amiably accommodating itself to the Christmas season, and of the obligatory communal vacations joined by colorful relatives. The abrupt transition to a flamboyant denizen of “downtowns,” Los Angeles or New York, to an existence as a character in the lives of marginal people, is evoked in sharply satirical terms, in a melange of humorous fact and fiction, monologues akin to those that make Bernhard an icon of pop culture.

A young orphaned woman named Kotzebue is trying to find out who her parents are in the icy landscapes of Alaska. Kotzebue is helped by an East German librarian, whose husband was killed while fleeing from the GDR. Although both women could not be more different from each other, a fragile relationship forms.

On the way to interview a novelist, Lane and Christina are involved in a car crash which leaves literary critic Christina brain-damaged. Lane undertakes the assignment and becomes attracted to the novelist’s 15 year old daughter, leading to stormy emotions.