The celebration of the 35th wedding anniversary of Russell Calloway’s best friend, Washington Lee --- the least likely monogamist of his acquaintance somehow having become over the years a model husband and father --- at the Odeon in the Spring of 2020 sparks an at once funny and moving autumnal reckoning with mortality as the specter of the COVID-19 virus spreads. In this moment of unprecedented upheaval --- frantic and fraught real-time response, piercing personal and political impact --- the Calloways find themselves and their marriage tested in ways they could never have anticipated as fatal consequences ensue.

Russell and Corrine Calloway seem to be living the dream: a calendar filled with high-society parties; jobs they care about and enjoy; twin children, a boy and a girl whose birth was truly miraculous; a loft in TriBeCa and summers in the Hamptons. But beneath the glossy surfaces, things are simmering. Russell, editor-in-chief of a boutique publisher, has cultural clout but is on the edge financially, and feels compelled to pursue an audacious --- and potentially ruinous --- opportunity. Meanwhile, Corrine’s world is turned upside down when the man with whom she’d had an ill-fated affair in the wake of 9/11 suddenly reappears, and the Calloways find themselves tested more severely than they ever could have imagined.