The narrator of this tale is never named, but we follow his journey from his intoxicated drive home one night where he veers off a cliff because he thinks he's dodging flaming arrows, through the accident itself as it almost claims his life, but instead leaves him in a burned body with various missing appendages, effectively ending his porn career. 
He spends almost a year recovering in the hospital undergoing various surgeries and planning his suicide as soon as he's released until he meets Marianne, a psyche ward patient, who begins telling him the story of their life together in medieval Germany.
This whole story was fascinating, everything from the burn treatments, his addiction issues, the stories Marianne tells him Scheherazade style about their previous life and a few standalone true love tales, to her own "diagnosis" as investigated by the narrator, to the grotesques she carves in order to give away her hearts so that she may finally rest when she gives away her last one.