Three opens with the death of a young woman, identified only as S, possibly a suicide. Following her death, Ruth and Leonard—a middle-aged British couple whose marriage has devolved into pithy and bitter conversations—review the time S spent at their summer house.

In a lyrical prose style likened to that of such diverse writers as Virginia Woolf and William Burroughs, Ann Quin presents the enigmatic intricacies of the relationship between these three people by blending the conversations and flashbacks of Ruth and Leonard with the diary, audiotapes and movies S left behind.

A combination of laconic dialogue and poetic impressions, Three is an incisive exploration of the emotional and sexual undercurrents of British middle-class life.