Onlyville opens in 1974 on the eastern seaboard of the United States against the background of the Watergate scandal and the pulsating pressure to impeach Richard Nixon. But all that is merely white noise for Anna Berman, who is floundering in her own turbid crisis. At 29, she has most of an undergraduate degree, a non-career as a temp, and an aging and overwhelming lover, Sal, a paranoid Korean War vet. In desperation Anna flees to her family’s abandoned cottage in Onlyville. She dives into her past, hoping to emerge refreshed and unfettered by the ghost of her mother, who one day, years before, left Anna sitting on the beach, watching, while she swam away until she disappeared.