Jake Preston is an American nomad, wandering the back roads of America, staying high while maintaining a self-imposed exile from family and friends. His troubled childhood-including an abusive alcoholic mother who committed suicide-left Jake in therapy and hospitalized, his senses numbed by drugs. This stark coming-of-age tale follows Jake from runaway teen, drug user, and alcoholic drifter into sobriety and reluctant but promising adulthood. In coming to terms with his new and tenuous sobriety, Jake is finally forced to face up to the various family issues he has run from his whole life. While facing his demons-loneliness, depression, and a morbid desire to use-and staying clean, he ultimately confronts a family responsibility that would have found the old Jake gone. The resolution of this dilemma tests his mettle and heightens the prospects of his fragile sobriety.