Irene Marston moves from Manhattan with her businessman husband to his hometown in Iowa. Stranded in a small town on the shore of a sea of cornfields, she looks for rescue in her painting, unlikely friendships and sex. At the same time she creates a fantasy journal of a successful life in New York and another journal where she describes the paintings she plans to paint. As her life unravels, she is plagued by the romantically addled fans of The Bridges of Madison County, who know about her husband's infidelity and see her as open to anything.