In 1963, Sam Callahan and his loud-mouthed mother, Lydia, are shipped off to a small backwater town in Wyoming by Lydia's patrician father, who wants them out of sight. Lydia is a perpetually misbehaving mom and Sam is a quick-witted observer of a world that seems to run on dark secrets and strange gropings in the night. Sam and Lydia both begin to pursue love in Gro Vant, Wyoming in their own way: Lydia, by starting a provocative neighborhood-shaking affair with a straight-laced rodeo-riding Native American named Hank Elkrunner; Sam, by developing a palpitating crush on the brainy and beautiful 7th-grade rancher's daughter Maurey. When Sam finally wins Maurey's friendship, he gets a chance to turn his life-long sexual education into some friendly experimentation, with unintended results that will shock and forever change the adults around them.