Mira and her friends represent a wide cross-section of American society in the 1950s and 1960s. Mira herself is from a middle-class background. She is mildly rebellious in that she disagrees with her mother's view of the world. In her late teens she dates a fellow student named Lanny; one night, when she was supposed to be out on a date with Lanny, he ignores her, and in response Mira dances with several men. Mira's actions in this instance gain her a reputation for being loose. Through this experience and several others with Lanny, Mira realizes she does not want to marry Lanny because he would leave her at home, alone, scrubbing floors.
Later, Mira marries Norm, a future doctor. Mira and Norm have two sons, Norm Jr. (referred to as Normie throughout the book) and Clark. During the first few years of her marriage with Norm, Mira develops friendships with three neighborhood women: Natalie, Adele, and Bliss—all of them are married with children. The women begin to throw dinner parties in order to create fun evenings together that involve their husbands. At the dinner parties there is flirtation between the different couples. Natalie begins to believe that her husband and Mira are having an affair but Mira is able to dismiss Natalie's accusation and their bonds survive until Mira discovers that Bliss and Natalie are having affairs with Adele's husband. The suspicion and actuality of affairs within the group results in irreversible damage to their friendships.
Mira and Norm later move to the small town of Beau Reve, where Mira meets fellow married women with children: Lily, Samantha, and Martha. During this time Mira's marriage to Norm becomes more and more routine, and Mira finds herself at home, alone, scrubbing floors. Also while in Beau Reve, Mira witnesses the struggles of her friends. Lily goes mad as a result of her son's rebellious behavior, Samantha is evicted after her husband loses his job and leaves her, and Martha takes a married lover who simultaneously gets his wife pregnant. Through her friends, Mira begins to understand the unfair advantages enjoyed by men in relationships.
After many years of marriage, Norm files for divorce (it is hinted that he has been having an affair for some time) and remarries, leaving Mira on her own. During this time, Mira, lost without her routine life of wifely duties, attempts to commit suicide and is found by Martha who helps her pick herself up. Mira returns the help in due time when Martha too attempts suicide in trying to deal with her failed affair and resulting divorce.
Following the divorce, Mira goes to Harvard University to study for a PhD in English literature, with which she hopes to fulfill her lifelong dream of teaching. There she meets Val, a militant radical feminist divorcée with a "precocious" teenage daughter, Chris. It is the heyday of Women's Liberation and Mira now too, finally able to verbalise her discontent at the society around her, becomes a feminist, although a less radical and militant one than Val. Their circle includes Isolde (a lesbian divorcée), Kyla (married to Harley), and Clarissa (married to Duke). It also includes Ben, a diplomat to the fictional African nation of Lianu, with whom Mira begins a relationship. Mira and Ben have a happy relationship, in which Mira is able to maintain a sense of independence. Mira's development in the relationship helps to show her new unwillingness to live the life of a stereotypical housewife. When Mira's children come to visit her at Harvard, her growth and independence is revealed by a clear change in her views on the dichotomy between motherhood and sexuality.
While at college, Val's daughter, Chris, is raped. Following the rape of her daughter, Val states (over Mira's protests), "Whatever they may be in public life, whatever their relationships with men, in their relationships with women, all men are rapists, and that's all they are. They rape us with their eyes, their laws, and their codes." This is one of the most quoted and criticized lines of the novel.
Mira later ends her relationship with Ben after realizing that Ben expects her to return to Lianu with him and bear his children. Soon after, she finds out that Val has been shot following a violent protest at the trial of a rape victim.
The book ends with a brief summary of where the characters are now. Ben married his secretary and now has two children. Mira is teaching at a small community college and is not dating anyone. The ending is also a doubling back in which the narrator begins to write the story the reader has just read.
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