It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful young housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset District in San Francisco, caring not only for her husband's fragile health but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears on her doorstep, and everything changes. For six months in 1953 young Pearlie Cook struggles to understand the world around her, and most especially her husband, Holland. Pearlie's story is a meditation not only on love but also on the effects of war, with one war recently over and another coming to a close. Set in a climate of fear and repression-political, sexual, and racial-The Story of a Marriage portrays three people trapped by the confines of their era, and the desperate measures they are prepared to take to escape it.