The Paper-Boy is about a man's obsession with people from the past and how this undermines his judgement and brings confusion to his life.

Marty Fox and his wife Nancy set off from Winnipeg for a holiday around Lake of the Woods to recharge their flagging marriage. The first night works for Marty because of a bottle of Scotch, a radio, and because he can imagine that Nancy is a stranger. The following evening he thinks he recognizes two attractive women, twins, with a much older man. The women are Constance and Rosemary, who moved into Erwin Sommerfeld's house on Marty's Winnipeg paper route in the sixties - Constance as Sommerfeld's 16-year-old wife and Rosemary as a kind of bonus. As a paper-boy, Marty had fantasized over these good-looking girls. Now it all comes back. But does Sommerfeld have a "married" relationship with both sisters?

Rain and high water follow Marty and Nancy who go with Sommerfeld and the twins to a river resort. What really happens to Sommerfeld there? The holiday becomes a nightmare, with strange consequences back in the city not only for Marty, but also for Nancy and Constance and Rosemary.