Cole Chambers has lived his entire young life in Lytton, British Columbia, where the opportunities for his generation are minimal. As an example, he and his friends, Frogger chief amongst them, are constantly drunk and/or stoned, or on their way to it as there is seemingly nothing else to do in town. He aspires to be a writer but doesn't know if he's any good at it. That's why he's excited to be accepted into a post-secondary level creative writing class in Vancouver, which is a three hour drive away. Going to the class doesn't sit well with his sister, May, as she sees that his responsibility should be to the family by helping her run the family business, the town's only gas station, with her deadbeat, redneck and abusive live-in boyfriend Bobby, helping with her two children, only one of whose is Bobby's biological child, and taking care of their mentally disabled mother. Cole is torn between his wants and his obligations in life, which include the aforementioned family, his want to write, which he learns he does have an aptitude for, and to use that as a stepping stone to get out of Lytton to a better life for him and his family, and to get to know Serafina Church better, she an outspoken and privileged young woman in his class who feels she doesn't have his gift since she hasn't suffered like many of the greatest writers. Getting to know Serafina better may be a difficult task as her family sees him as being white trailer trash, and he in turn feels uncomfortable in her world as his family problems start to mount, especially with Bobby's increasingly violent behavior.—Huggo