A day in November 1962. In a suburb of Los Angeles, George lives. Since his friend Jim passed away, the American utopia has become hell on earth for him. He trudges through the day with difficulty: he teaches a course at the university, visits his best friend, drives around the area – but above all, he dissects his environment in an unstoppable stream of thoughts. This day seems to pass like all the others before it, until George encounters a student on the beach at night. A deeply moving novel that tells of bitter loneliness and the fear of being different, the failure of interpersonal communication, and a society that turns a blind eye to all of this.