A renowned writer, Elizabeth Costello has to put up with a large number of various inconveniences. First of all, she is a sixty-six year old woman who has committed all her life to writing, often neglecting not only her own needs but her children in order to give all her strengths to her work. Due to the fact that her first novel is about women’s liberation, her interviewers – more often than not they are also women who write books about her – expect her to be an energetic fighter for equality, who eagerly discusses importance of a woman’s role in the modern society. They are extremely disappointed to see an elderly woman, who is seek and tired of discussing her first book.
Accompanied by her son John, she comes to Pennsylvania to receive the Stowe Award. During her acceptance speech, she speaks about Kafka and the audience finds it difficult to follow her idea, for this kind of talk is not to their liking. It seems that there is a gap between her and her audience. Although public speaking becomes a challenge for her, she decides to take a cruise in which she is supposed to speak about realism. The applause she gets is unenthusiastic.
Not only the public doesn’t understand what she wants them to realize, but her own family. Elizabeth’s vegetarianism often provokes quarrels between her and her daughter-in-law. Her son is torn between love for his mother and difficulties in accepting her point of view. More often than not, he asks himself why she can’t be just like any other elderly woman. The truth is that she doesn’t know the answer herself. She speaks about the things people don’t want to know, because she feels the need to do it.
Elizabeth has a sister she hasn’t seen for a long period of time. She lives in Africa and serves in the Marian Order. The sisters have a very little in common. During the graduation ceremony they both invited to, Blanche criticizes the humanities. Their parting is bitter, for they know that they see each other for the last time. Blanche says that Elizabeth chooses the wrong Greeks, which means that she doesn’t support philosophical ideas her sister is so fond of.
For now, Elizabeth is in a certain kind of limbo, where she is supposed to explain what she believes in, so that she could pass through the gate. She is supposed to do it in front of the court. Her first attempt is a complete failure, for she says the truth and claims that she doesn’t believe in anything. She has another try, but the novel ends before she finds out whether she is going to pass through the gate or not.
