For most of its members, the new Whistlebrook Green condo development is a gated retreat from the heat of the city. For the newly retired but long burned-out Sam Myler, it's mostly a way to lower his living costs. But when the 180-year-old skeleton of a man is found in the land being excavated for the community's car ports, Sam finds himself increasingly entranced by the history of the Whistlebrook Association, the Abolitionist utopian community that occupied the site in the mid-nineteenth century.
Driven to impress his new neighbor, Jane, and stimulated by the letters written by Association members, Sam stirs from his lifelong passivity. A debate is raging about the future of the conservation land behind his condo complex and whether to accommodate or repel the influx of climate migrants. But are the motives and integrity of some of his neighbors aboveboard, or do they have a hidden agenda? As Sam begins to dig, past and present begin to mirror each other, revealing the forces and dubious motives shaping his new home.