The year is 1970. When Mayzie Jenkins takes a summer nursing job in the Catskill Mountains, she has no idea that her innocent world is about to be shattered. She realizes this hospital experience will strengthen her medical school application, and she looks forward to staying on the family farm with her big brother Harry, whose simple mind keeps him home under their parents' watchful eyes.

But Mayzie expects to be bored. She is surprised to develop friendships with Bobby Cutler, an angry paraplegic who is smoking himself to death, and with Sean Cavanagh, a charming Irish medical student. She argues with Ted McFadden, a redneck paramedic who applauds the Vietnam War, and she locks horns with Abe Zimmerman, the patriarch of a vacationing orthodox Jewish family.


At Liberty Loomis Hospital, Mayzie Jenkins comes face to face with a clash of cultures, crippling illnesses, domestic violence, and death. It is here that she realizes the true value of friendship, loyalty, and love. And it is here that her dark suppressed memory comes to light. Its haunting damage reaches far beyond Mayzie Jenkins and her family.