Augusta Price (not her real name) is famous in England for playing a slatternly barmaid on a nighttime soap opera and for falling down drunk in public. Now, she has no job, no relationship with her long-lost son, and a sad shortage of tranquilizers - but she has had an improbable hit with her memoir (which is based on a true story, but only very loosely).

But when Frances Bleeker - an insecure and not very successful American tabloid journalist - tells Augusta that a man she once loved has written a book, Augusta becomes terrified that her life story will be revealed as the web of lies it really is. She sets out on a trans-Atlantic journey from London to California to seek revenge on her former lover - a journey that will require the reluctant help of Frances.