If you asked Andrew Donelan, he led a charmed life. He had a good wife and partner, well-adjusted kids, an apartment in the city and house in the country — he was on a carefully charted course to enduring happiness. So nothing could have prepared him as he awoke one sunny June morning to a one-dimensional world — hollowed, flattened, mere surfaces. All intention, purpose, and value had drained from his psyche overnight, like a magic elixer from a leaky jar. He had become an automaton. Looking in the mirror he saw not a life rich with dreams, feelings and goals, but just a thing among things. If luck had loaned him happiness, it had stealthily recalled the loan while he slept.
This sudden, unexpected loss of a meaning forces the narrator onto a quest to recover it. He must embark on a dangerous, uncertain descent through the unconscious, dreams and myths. This dark path either descends to death or leads back to a renewed life. It is a risk he must take.