In the spring of 1970 in suburban Chicago, Howie Shapiro, the family gonif, needs fifty thousand to keep his business afloat. He asks his brothers Morry, the old socialist and Shelly, the country club Republican, but they are understandably skeptical. Morry wants to sell the old family business, which their father put in his hands, but he needs everyone’s permission. Howie and Helen are flamboyantly separated and their sixteen year old daughter Dinah is basically home alone. One night Shelly’s son Michael sneaks in Dinah’s window. He’s been involved in a bombing on his college campus needs to go underground.

Family grudges, love affairs, business ethics, the sins of the past and the War in Vietnam all interweave in the story of one Jewish family’s struggles with the social issues of the day when Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State killings were tearing the country apart.