Dostoevsky, impoverished by gambling debts and desperate, makes a Faustian contract with his publisher: In return for an advance he agrees to deliver a novel within a year or lose all rights to his existing and future works. Twenty-seven days before the manuscript is due, he has still not begun work. Despairing, he hires a stenographer, Ann Snitkina, whose passionate determination urges him on to finish the book, saving his career.

This true story of Dostoevsky's love affair with Anna Snitkina, the woman he later married is interwoven with scenes from his novella, The Gambler, as he dictates it.