The author sets the work at the beginning of World War II. Summer of 1940, in the tropical heat, there is a hotel run by the widow Maxine with the help of two young Mexicans, who are also her lovers.

The existing guests are a family of German tourists - caricatures of discipline and lack of imagination. New guests arrive at the hotel: the former priest and now guide Shannon, the painter Hannah with her grandfather, and a few other secondary characters.

Shannon, Hannah, and Maxine form a triangle that is the central core of the work.