Florence decides to open a small bookstore, the first in town. She acquires a building that has been abandoned for years, riddled with damp, and even haunted by its own capricious poltergeist. But she soon encounters the silent resistance of the town's leading figures, who, politely but relentlessly, begin to corner her. Florence is then forced to hire a ten-year-old girl as an assistant—in fact, the only one who doesn't dream of sabotaging her business. When someone suggests she stock the controversial Olympia Press edition of Nabokov's Lolita, a subtle but devastating earthquake is unleashed in the town.