Amid the crises of the summer of 1968, two teenagers become lovers. Emily is a good Catholic girl, for whom an incarnate God means joy and contentment in the life of the body. William is preoccupied, in a vague sort of way, with politics and the evils of the System. Together, impelled by physical passion and the idealistic notion that "all our life is some form of religion, and all our action some belief," they run away to create a new life in the wilderness. In their absence, their parents' predictable lives take an entirely different course, and America itself seems to lose its innocence,...