Frank Hutchison never knew his father or about his paternal ancestors, but he does know that he has the same name as a legendary blues singer of the 1920’s, with whom he sometimes identifies. He dreams of becoming a professional baseball player or a famous historian, but his future is threatened by the Vietnam War and the military draft. After college in New York he persuades his best friends, Dick and Laurie Babcock, to escape with him to the hinterlands, where they will be able to live in peace and pursue their ambitions and a new way of personal interaction that they call ‘The Experiment’. Also along is Laurie’s wealthy friend, Cindy, who is trying to free herself from a drug dependency. In a small town in western Virginia the local slumlord, Mike Spikes, offers them free rent in exchange for operating his junk store. Frank. who is using the name ‘Peter Sanchez’, soon discovers that he has no talent for historical research and turns to growing marijuana in the woods, which he secretly sells to Cindy’s despised ex-lover, Wood Conway, a college instructor in Ohio. A government social worker arrives in the community to organize the tenants against Spikes, and Frank and his friends find themselves caught in the middle, with disasterous, and poignantly humorous, results.