The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: Davis, Sara. The Scapegoat. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021.

The Scapegoat opens with the narrator, who is referred to by the initial N, sitting in the break room at the university where he works. A graduate student named Kirstie Johanssen enters and asks N to read her horoscope aloud. N dislikes Kirstie, but he complies, then reads his own horoscope. It states “The path between events that may seem unrelated will soon become clear...you will find yourself uniquely positioned to set things in motion” (5). N believes this message relates to his investigation into his father's suspicious death. He notes that he recently had a dream about his father shooting himself on a bridge over a river. The bridge in the dream was familiar to N.

N goes to the open house at the home his father was living in with his third wife and their children. A realtor named Sharon shows him around, and when she leaves him alone for a moment, he looks through his father's bedroom closet. He finds a piece of stationery from the Old Mission Hotel San Buenaventura in a coat pocket, on which his father had scrawled the note “Saturday, 10 am, MC” (16). That evening, N goes home and reads a novel about a Swedish detective.

The next day, N finds a note in his mailbox advertising an upcoming Mahler concert at the hospital attached to the university. He is invited to dinner with two colleagues who are entertaining a guest lecturer from out of town. During the dinner, the lecturer mentions she is staying at the Old Mission Hotel, and N offers to drive her there afterward because she is intoxicated. Upon arrival, he finds the hotel ominous looking, and the interior and the concierge very strange. He hopes to find some clue relating to his father, who must have stayed at the hotel at some point. The guest lecturer passes out in her room, and N begins to look around. He finds a briefcase under the desk and opens it. Inside, there is an animal carving, which appears to be covered in blood and human hair. When he returns to his car in the parking lot, he finds a flyer on the windshield, which reads “STOP SITES OF GENOCIDE FROM BECOMING TOURIST ATTRACTIONS” (45).

When he returns to the university the next day, N finds a bill from the hospital in his mailbox, which he claims is related to a “misunderstanding” (51) about something he said. He attends the Mahler concert, but he is distracted by thoughts about his father and everything that has recently occurred. When the concert ends, he realizes he is sitting beside Kirstie Johanssen, who remarks, tearfully, that she never noticed how much N looks like his father. That night, N attends dinner with his only friends, Gerry and Ann Van Gelder. Ann mentions that Gerry has recently returned from North Dakota, and that he left one of his bags at the hotel there. N contemplates Kirstie's emotional display after the concert and decides that he is uncomfortable with women articulating their feelings because his mother was “a highly logical person” (67). N dreams about the Mahler concert and the Old Mission Hotel. In the dream, he is in the hotel room with Kirstie. He opens the briefcase, but it is empty. He tells Kirstie that something was inside the last time he looked, and she says that “It's been moved...It's on its way back here” (74).

N calls the hotel, pretending to be his father, and asks if he left a bag there. The concierge says that no one by that name ever stayed at the hotel. Disappointed, N reads his detective novel and goes to sleep. The next day, N receives a call from a mysterious woman who asks him to meet her at the Arboretum. The woman is the guest lecturer, and when he meets her, she gives him a note. The note contains the alias N's father supposedly used when staying at the Old Mission Hotel—Daniel Shriver. In the university break room, one of N's colleagues, Alex Foss, introduces him to a man visiting the campus from Germany named Mr. Reinecke. N tries to talk to Mr. Reinecke, but feels too anxious. N recalls his father visiting him in Ottawa 20 years earlier. At this time, N was being expelled from medical school, and his father invited him to come to California and work at the university where he was president. N agreed, even though he had a romantic attachment in Ottawa he did not want to leave.

N calls the hotel and gives the concierge his father's alias. The concierge says that Daniel Shriver did leave a bag there. In his university mailbox, N finds a flyer advertising a lecture called “AMERICAN HOLOCAUST” (124). When N returns to the hotel, the concierge says that his representative already picked up the bag and she is in the bar. He sees the guest lecturer, but he is briefly distracted and when he turns back, she is gone. The briefcase remains, and he discovers it is empty. In the parking lot, there is another flyer, this one reading “THE MISSIONS...WERE FURNACES OF DEATH” (133). The next day, N recalls receiving a note from his lover in Ottawa, asking him to be honest about the “misunderstanding” (141) that resulted in his hospitalization. He has a dream about Mr. Reinecke.

Back at the university, N reads a note he once received from his mother, in which she chastised him because his “friend” (156) had called her, telling her that N had attempted suicide. She expressed no sympathy or concern. N is asked to meet with his boss, Professor Pindar. During the meeting, N is fascinated by the whale paperweight on the professor's desk. Pindar tells N that his job is safe even though his father has left the university, and alludes to a relationship between N's father and Kirstie Johanssen. N asks why “it is so difficult for everyone to admit” (167) that his father is dead, and Pindar expresses confusion.

N wanders into a lecture, where a man begins speaking about Spanish colonization of the Americas and the religious missions they established there. He then accuses N of making racist remarks. The guest lecturer appears and tells the increasingly angry attendees to stop harassing N. Later, he receives a call from Sharon, the realtor, who tells him that “they” (182) want the hotel to close. She asks N to meet her. N realizes he is still holding the whale paperweight from Professor Pindar's desk. He puts it in the briefcase and goes to the hotel.

N remembers calling his lover in Ottawa after his suicide attempt, hoping the man's wife would answer and learn about their affair. At the hotel, the concierge hands N a key and he goes up to a room. Inside, he hears someone taking a bath. He enters the bathroom and it is Kirstie. She says that she is pregnant and that she refuses to have an abortion, but it is clear that she is speaking not to N, but to his father. Suddenly, Kirstie becomes the guest lecturer. She remarks, “we know all about you and your unique challenges...Still, we did have your general instability working for us” (194-5). She then morphs into N's mother. She chastises N for being too needy, blaming him for his father never being part of his life. N takes the whale paperweight from the briefcase and beats her over the head until she is unrecognizable. He then puts the paperweight back in the briefcase and leaves it under the desk.

N goes to the Van Gelders' house, where he thinks to himself that Ann Van Gelder looks like an “old shoe” (205). However, he has clearly spoken aloud, because Ann repeats what he has said. Gerry Van Gelder says that Kirstie Johanssen is missing. N faints, and when he wakes up he is handcuffed to a bed and there is a strange older man in the room with him. N remembers the only time he saw his father on the university campus. It was 20 years ago and his father was standing next to the Burghers of Calais sculptures, which had been covered with canvas and rope.