A Vermont farm boy makes his way across the continent meeting Amish folk, migrant farm workers, Native Americans, rodeo cowboys, people who are living out their lives still connected to the working landscape amid the tectonic shifts of the 1960's counterculture Family tragedy has driven Danny Sweeney away from home. Like the dispossessed who survive on the leavings of the harvest, he gleans nourishment from new experiences and relationship as he moves from late adolescence into young manhood; from self-abandonment to self-discovery. More than a coming of age story, The Gleaner is a paean to our lost heritage, our vital connection to land and working animals and to the earth itself.