Growing up can be difficult, and when your parents take you away from your friends and all that is familiar, growing up slides a little closer to impossible. For Douglas Hobart, age ten, son of a hardworking but sometimes enigmatic father and an emotionally fragile mother, growing up took a turn towards the impossible when his family moved to the rural suburbs of Montvale, Maryland. Through the eyes of Douglas, each of the four Hobart children reacts in their own way to the uprooting and the sprawling effects thereafter. With a free-spirited older sister, an attention starved younger brother, and one more little brother "baking in the oven", Douglas embarks on a journey of self-discovery and emotional evolution. When the worst possible tragedy befalls the Hobart family, the children go their separate ways, both emotionally and physically. Douglas finally frees himself from the tragic associations of Montvale by attending a small western Pennsylvania college, where an affable theatre student, two Swedish lesbians, a wealthy but rebellious New York debutante, and an increasingly unhealthy relationship with his sister send him hurdling in unforeseen directions. In the end, a great many lives have been affected in ways that could not be predicted, and in Douglas' mind, it all started with the family move.