It's the late 1960's. The summer after his freshman year of college, Will Esco, a city kid, gets to spend a long weekend at a university campus in the Midwest. He has his first taste of what is happening: the music, the protest, the drugs. Off on a late night search to find a place to sleep, he comes upon a hippie hangout and meets a mysterious young woman who plays the guitar and sings the blues. She spends hours teaching him how to play one song. The next morning the woman is gone, but Will is changed. Back in the New York for school and work, Will is haunted by the song he and "Pam" sang together. Meanwhile the youth revolution is gathering force. Will struggles with his course work, marches in the anti-Draft protests, attends the rock concerts, and explores the idea of love with his Bronx girlfriend. The pull of the movement is too great. Will quits school, moves to the East Village, befriends Vic, another college kid, and becomes the manager of Vic's psychedelic rock band. The girl he said he loved, now shunted aside, music, drugs, and sexual freedom become the substance of his mantra. The image of the blues singer is still with him. The mad conflict in the streets overtakes Will and his radical friends at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. The movement has grown desperate. The Draft before him, Will resolves to carry on with the life he has chosen. When he makes the pilgrimage to Woodstock in August of '69, he must at last confront what he has done.