Wildfires, eerily reminiscent of the brutal wildfires we’ve been reading about in California, are spreading above the quiet town of Great Falls. And no sooner has good natured sonny Joe Brinson waved goodbye to his father, off to fight ‘em fires for a measly $1 an hour, has his mother dusted off her deb dress and taken to touching up her puckered lips with a particularly devilish brand of rouge. Bigwig Warren Miller, owner of the local car dealership, has suddenly taken to stopping by Joe’s house for books of poetry – though it doesn’t take Philip Marlowe to suspect it isn’t William Wordsworth that’s brought him sniffing. And so it is that our young hero finds himself facing wild forces of nature, both domestic and abroad, that threaten to combust his simple and all too nuclear family life.