In 1975, Mary Park, the only daughter of a wealthy and respected dynasty whose family accommodation is in Bloomsbury Square, London, is being driven beyond endurance by domestic and marital responsibilities, financial pressures and intellectual frustration. A separation from her philandering husband and the concern of her teenage daughter taking drugs occupy a large amount of her time.
However, rumours, arriving from an unprincipled and grievous mathematician, a man desperate to redeem his own family heritage, informs her that her grandfather once built an extraordinary machine which offered the possibility of changing the entire world.
Mary will need to confront her family's shadowy past and endure obscure and repugnant painful memories before she can unravel the mystery of what her mother used to call, 'Bleak House'.