Alma Mahler presents the imagined memories of a talented, passionate woman living in the shadow of a famous husband. The novel deals with Alma's marriage to the distant and introverted Gustav Mahler, the Austrian late-Romantic composer and conductor, and with the many intellectual and emotional sacrifices Alma makes in order to be a support for him. Throughout, Alma wrestles with the tension between her desire to be near genius and her growing awareness that all she will ever receive in return for her sacrifice are the great man's silence and the pains of solitude.