"This is the summer of love, confusion, and the smell of fresh cut grass," says drifting protagonist Zac Peace, an accomplished recent graduate. Zac arrives at his Long Island home depressed about his father's death, his mother's estrangement, and his own uncertain future. To pass time he mows lawns for his mentor, Sam, a former publishing genius and current pot-smoking dropout from the rat race. Zac falls in love with Eastern Grace, and shares with her his deepest feelings - expressed through letters written to his dead father. When Eastern inadvertently alerts Sam to Zac's writing potential, she sets into motion a cycle of events that brings an uplifting resolution to all their lives.