As an unknown entropy called “ruin” consumes the earth and turns everything into blackened ash, a longtime middle-aged couple named Ben and Lois drive down to their friend Stan’s house in Cerulean Cliffs to party away the end of the world. Cerulean Cliffs is a community of wealthy artists, while Ben is a poet who has only had mediocre success. Stan lives with his new wife MacKenzie, a beautiful but inscrutable model, and her nine-year-old daughter Cecy. Ben initially judges Stan for leaving his longtime wife Abby for her, but his own attraction to MacKenzie and history of infidelity with his wife makes him a hypocrite. That night they go to a party at an Oscar-winning director’s house, where they drink, do drugs, and dance all night until the host himself jumps off a cliff. There, Ben meets Veronica Glass, a mutilation artist famous for her gory work with the human body. Despite her career, he’s extremely attracted to her.

The next days are spent attending nightly parties as ruin creeps closer and one by one the artist hosts kill themselves in creative ways. Even with his growing attraction to MacKenzie and Veronica, Ben and Lois also grow closer with their love for each other. The adults argue about whether Cecy should be protected from the grotesque violence of the artists’ deaths. Ben also gets increasingly intrigued by Veronica Glass, who he visits one day. She shows him her art, which is severed human limbs carefully dissected or peeled back in layers that were done while the volunteer was awake and strapped down. She asks him if he’s interested in becoming her subject, but the art appalls him and he runs. 

The days again increasingly blur into drugs and parties as ruin approaches. Ben and MacKenzie kiss, but even when Stan proposes that they switch partners he decides to remain with Lois. At one of the parties, Ben speaks with a poet who won a National Book Award and is pleasantly surprised that the other knows his relatively obscure work. That night Ben also watches Lois slip away to cheat on him, and the next morning they discuss their mutual infidelity and settle fully on their love for one another. That night is Veronica Glass’s party, and she once again asks him to be her subject and he declines. She leads her audience into a room and asks for volunteers for her art, and one woman accepts. As she begins to cut into her, Cecy screams, and the four adults hurriedly leave the party. After that they don’t go to the suicides anymore and instead enjoy each other’s company and play together. Ben thinks of art for art’s sake and begins to write poetry again.