My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a novel that follows the twenty-something main character, who is never given a name, as she spends a year inside her apartment. There, she mostly sleeps, using pills prescribed by a psychiatrist named Mr. Tuttle to deal with her unsatisfying life and ennui.

The unnamed protagonist of the novel graduates from Columbia University in the early 2000s. During her time in college, she suffers the loss of both of her parents and inherits a sum of money. Post-college, she begins working and is eventually fired. She chooses to spend a year living off of her unemployment checks, watching television, and sleeping off her boredom. She sometimes awakens to realize that she has been out, basically sleepwalking, but has little to no memory of the places she has been or things she has done.

The story all leads up to September 11, 2001, the date when the character finally comes out of her self-induced isolation as a somewhat new, more appreciative person.