This story utilizes narration in first and second person to tell two strands of the plot. The first-person narration traces the more straightforward plot points through chronological order, whereas the second person viewpoint is interwoven to indicate the protagonist’s reflection on her daughter’s life from a perspective that includes past, present and future melded into one whole.

Dr. Louise Banks, a linguist, tells her daughter the story of how she was conceived. She also claims to know how the story of her daughter’s life ends. It all begins with the arrival of alien ships and the appearance of strange artifacts in meadows across the world. Colonel Weber approaches Louise and physicist Dr. Gary Donnelly with a recording of the language the aliens use. Louise explains that one can grasp a foreign language only through communication: “[I]t’s possible our ears simply can’t recognize the distinctions they consider meaningful’” (91). Weber is concerned that the aliens should not also learn English in the process.

Louise tells her daughter about having to identify her dead body, after she died in a rock-climbing fall at the age of 25. 

There are 112 alien artifacts in the world, and the military assigns a team of scientists to each one.