Andreas Ban, a psychologist who does not psychologize anymore and a writer who no longer writes, lives alone in a coastal town in Croatia. He sifts through the remnants of his life - his research, books, photographs - remembering old lovers and friends, the events of WWII, and the breakup of Yugoslavia.

Ban’s memories of Belgrade, Amsterdam, and Toronto alternate with meditations on the mental faculties of rats, a depressed arctic fox, and the agelessness of lobsters. He tries to push the past away, to  land on a little island of time in which tomorrow does not exist, in which yesterday is buried.

Drndic leafs through the horrors of history with a cold unflinching wit. The past is riddled with holes, she writes. Souvenirs can’t help here.