It is the Catskills, in the summer of 1960. By the shore of a lake, Lili Adler, the troubled twenty-year-old daughter of a wealthy German-Jewish refugee, meets Nick Lockridge, a golden young man who looks to her as if “nothing ever happened to him.” Over the summer, Lili comes to view Nick as her saviour and Nick’s fondness for Lili grows; but to Eva, Lili’s autocratic mother, Nick is an object of suspicion, and the romance that blossoms between him and Lili is an unfortunate condition that must be indulged before it can be obliterated.