Welcome to Rutgers University, 1970. This New Jersey college campus, like others across the country, is a microcosm of the turbulent times that would transform America forever.
- The Seventies come roaring back to life as six students struggle with the political and social movements of the decade that would change America forever. The novel deals with the personal lives of six students as they collide amidst the Student Protest Movement on the Rutgers campus in the late 60’s and early 70’s.
- Danny Watkins is the student advisor to a dormitory full of Freshmen students. His driving passion is to become a famous journalist. He works on the Daily Targum, the student newspaper. Standing in his way is Jim Morris , his mercurial editor, who doubts Danny’s ability to succeed. The editor keeps assigned Danny stories that do not match his ability.
After an important news story goes disastrously wrong, Danny is fired from the newspaper and loses his scholarship and risks being drafted into the Vietnam War. He risks everything in a last gasp trip to NYC effort to recruit Abbie Hoffman, a controversial activist ,to speak on the campus. If he fails, he must drop out of school and face being to serve in the unpopular the unpopular war in Vietnam.
Through the eyes of these college students, we see the political and social upheaval that defined this decade: the Vietnam war, civil rights movement, women’s movement, and sexual revolution. It was an era of peace, love, and war, and all three came together in universities like Rutgers.