Beautiful Losers is a complex narrative divided into three distinct books. The first book features a narrator engulfed in personal tragedy, the second book presents a series of letters from a character named F., and the third is an epilogue that revisits the characters in their twilight years. Through its intricate structure, the novel explores themes of loss, devotion, and personal transformation during a tumultuous period in the author's life.

Book 1: The Narrator's Journey

The narrator in the opening book is a man grappling with profound loss. He has tragically lost his wife in what might be a suicidal leap and has also seen his dearest friend succumb to political despair. As a folklorist, he immerses himself in studying the nearly extinct A--s tribe, a focus that becomes an escape from his sorrow.

Edith's Tragic End

His wife, Edith, the last known member of the A--s, felt abandoned due to her husband's obsessive commitment to his research. In desperation for attention, she hid at the bottom of an elevator shaft near their home. Her presence there went unnoticed until a delivery boy's arrival sealed her fate, leading to her untimely death.

The Enigmatic Catherine Tekakwitha

Central to the narrator's study is Catherine Tekakwitha, a seventeenth-century A-- who embraced Christianity. Her life, much like Edith's, was marked by self-denial and external influences. Despite attempts to arrange a marriage for her, she rejected her physical needs and relentlessly pursued spiritual purity, even to the detriment of her own body. Her extreme acts of self-discipline eventually required intervention from her community, but her devotion remained unyielding until her demise.

F.'s Influence and Mystique

The narrator’s quest for connection with Edith, Catherine, and F. leads him to an enigmatic message from F., who is thought to have sacrificed himself for his beliefs, much like Catherine. F. had announced plans to detonate himself during a royal visit to protest Canada's ties to Britain, but his letter reveals he survived, losing only a thumb. This correspondence exposes F.'s intricate manipulation of the narrator, fostering humility that F. saw as a path to strength.

Unveiling Edith's Beauty

F.'s letters reveal his role in shaping Edith’s allure through carefully crafted beauty rituals, linking soap and perfection in the narrator’s mind. F. confesses his deliberate withholding of information to mold the narrator into a better man through suffering. Despite his admissions, F. sees himself as incapable of reaching the moral heights he envisions for his friend.

F.'s Final Acts

From within a hospital for the criminally insane, F. pens his letters, often interrupted by the demands of nurse Mary Voolnd, with whom he plots an escape. Their attempt ends in tragedy for Mary, but F. emerges unshackled, reappearing in the epilogue as an aged man.

The Epilogue: Reflections of Age

In the final chapter, the narrator, now an old man with a beard, descends from his treehouse, still plagued by old ailments and desires. Despite the passage of time, his quest for sexual fulfillment continues, targeting young boys, echoing the beginning of his and F.'s relationship at a Catholic orphanage. Similarly, F., now missing a thumb, also seeks gratification with the same youthful targets, cementing their complex and intertwined histories.