Tom is a charismatic late-night radio talk show host. Fay is his total opposite; her romantic ideal has not yet been attained and is unlikely ever to be due to her impossibly high expectations. The characters connect in a maze of situations, underpinning the idea that ‘geography is destiny’ and that each of us has our own ‘republic’, where lives intersect.

In the midst of struggling to overcome her self-destructive behavior, the youngest of three sisters, Agnes, returns to her hometown in Nova Scotia determined to confront the past. Her arrival sets in motion a chain of events that allows a family of women to, each in their own way, re-connect with the world and each other.