Seven years after the events of ''Henry Fool,'' Fay Grim (Parker Posey) is coerced by a CIA agent (Jeff Goldblum) to try to locate 'the confession novel' notebooks that belonged to her fugitive husband (Thomas Jay Ryan) whom he believes to be deceased. Fay is launched into a world of espionage as she travels to Paris to retrieve some of the journals, each having mysteriously appeared in the hands of the most unlikely of people. Simon Grim, Fay's brother and Nobel Prize–winning poet because of Henry, remains home with his sister's son, the CIA and his publisher.