This wasn't a typical story, with a beginning, middle, and an end. Instead, we get a chance to delve into the unnamed narrator's mind as she deals with new losses (her missing father, the end of a relationship) and old (a failed marriage, a lost child). At the same time, the book's setting of an isolated lake in the middle of nowhere begins to affect the narrator in a number of ways. 
 I don't want to say too much more, because this is the kind of book that loses something in the retelling. It's best to experience it yourself. All credit to Ms. Atwood for finding the words to get the story on paper in the first place!