After Charles Bach learns of his father's death, he begins a mental journey to find more meaning in his life. Charles, the oldest of three children, holds many questions concerning life and his future. He's a young married man working toward obtaining a college degree and has been estranged from his alcoholic father for some time. Knowing intimately the scope of destruction that alcohol abuse hurls upon a family, Charles remembers all too well the details of the damage it wrought upon him and his relatives. He recalls his life of growing up in the American Canal Zone prior to and during WWII before his mother took him and his two siblings to California in 1944. Many of his recollections include countless moments of escalated tension and arguments between his parents as his father's consumption of alcohol increased.
In The Aquarian Son Charles attempts to make sense of his perceptions which had been greatly distorted by the effects of alcoholism. Which path will Charles select as he continues his life? Will he be able to end the cycle of serious alcohol abuse in his family, or will he follow the destructive path taken by his father?