Karen, in her early twenties, and Vickie, in her early thirties go through the turbulent 1960s, each expressing her own perspective, through New York, Vermont, Chicago and the desert outside L.A. The main characters are intelligent and in search of something missing in their lives: love, acceptance, control and enlightenment in a secular, turbulent age. As their world changes, they experience the discontent of their constraints. Confiding in and trusting each other, they become social activists through war protests, police riots, and alienation from those who live traditional lives. Chris, a self-appointed guru, seduces both women, telling Vickie she needs "enlightenment" away from her intellectual "hang-ups." As his control increases even through the use of acid, Karen, the more skeptical of the two, begins to find him frightening. Filled with a poetic love of beauty and language, MYSTIC FRUIT is a Bildungsroman (coming-of-age story). for two women dealing with the issues of change, division and blind trust that was so much a part of the times for good and for ill.