Helen, a graduate student on a path to solve high-temperature superconductivity and thereby save the planet, is one of the best minds of her generation. When her irreplaceable advisor's student sex scandal is exposed, she must choose whether to give up on her work or accompany him to RIP, a research institute off the Connecticut coast, which grants safe harbour to professors that other institutions and society have sent packing. Founded by a nefarious billionaire, RIP is a libertarian, libertine dream, a place where the disgraced and deplorable operate at the top of their fields with impunity and, indeed, every comfort.
Unwilling to abandon her work, Helen decides to join her advisor at RIP, bringing along her partner, Hew, who is deeply uncomfortable about being there.
As she settles into life at the institute, Helen develops a crush on an iconoclastic older novelist, while Hew gets involved in an increasingly violent protest movement, the rift between them deepening until both face major – and potentially world-altering – choices
