It's 1899. John Venner, born Giovanni Vener, has just been committed to the Vernon County Insane Asylum. When one of the nurses hands him a pen and a pad, his suppressed need to write surfaces and he scribbles about his experience the night before. By the third day he is making diary entries addressed to Maddie, the love of his life who had died just a few months earlier. John looks back at a life that was good to him, but one that never allowed him...