"Part mystic, part poet, the young precocious Dawes Williams is learning to curse and shoot firecrackers while trying to understand the larger mysteries of life, his family, and literature. As a teenager, he's stifled by ennui in his hometown of Rapid Cedar, Iowa. Drinking with his buddies, shooting pool, curising for sex, Dawes tries to be one of the guys, but is set apart by his sensitivity, odd cultural references, and artistic sensibility. Labeled the town eccentric, he becomes increasingly unsettled and, as the turbulence of the 1960s begins to erupt, finds himself fighting for his sanity......
