During the five years of their adulterous affair, Finn Fitzgerald and Elin Marstrander spend only 47 days and nights together. At each of their meetings—in Spain or London, or on the tiny island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea, which serves as their last refuge—they try to conjure a reality that will correspond to that of the passionate letters they exchange while apart.

Elin, a Danish poet, and Fitz, an Irish novelist, send each other beautiful, loving words, as well as evocative jabs of cruelty, often in the same letter. In the whirling world of their writing they attempt to enjoy their love in the calm they can't find in their daily lives. But as reality—their lovers and their children; their failures and regrets—creeps in, their relationship inevitably crumbles: "The dream ends."