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This historical novel is a hybrid, containing the actual journal a 19-year-old man kept from April 1933, when he joined the CCCs, through his tour in Yellowstone Park, and his return home to Brooklyn in September.
Using the journal verbatim as a plot device, the bulk of the book contains what he might have omitted, what he might have been, the relationships he might have formed, the deaths he might have experienced, and the lover he might have left behind in Montana.
The son of Sicilian immigrants at the height of the Depression, this young man's future was grim. But then he joined the CCCs, and everything changed. He became a man, both physically and emotionally. His body grew stronger each day, and he took on tasks he never would have attempted before. He climbed trees and mountains, cleared heavy vegetation for trails and roads, fought raging forest fires, and slept under the stars when he could take a break from the fires. He became a leader of men, rather than a follower of boys, which he had been back in Brooklyn.
Sicilian parents shaped their children, especially their sons, through a series of unwritten rules, designed to help young Italian men navigate life's challenges in a new country. This man's conflict revolves around the fundamental mandate: Young men must not leave Brooklyn; they should meet and marry an Italian woman (preferably Sicilian) and settle near the man's parents. He witnessed this all around him before he left. But his experiences in Yellowstone and its surrounding towns affected him. Does he stay in Montana with the woman he madly loves, or does he leave her behind?
All this takes place in the background of the Depression and includes passages from FDR's Inauguration speech and Fireside Chats, which inspired this young man. He sees bread lines, the homeless living in Hoovervilles, and the Boxcar Children. He visits the Chicago World's Fair en route to Montana. And he takes in everything Yellowstone has to offer--the wildlife, the geysers, the hot springs, and the fresh air.
