When his best friend from childhood murders his girlfriend and then commits suicide, Nick Framingham reevaluates his own life through his memories of their friendship and realizes unsettling truths about himself and their suburban New York community.

In 1960s New Jersey, a family battles to prevent the state from taking away their retarded son. The story is told through the eyes of Denny, the retarded boy's brother. He describes how the father retreats into alcoholism and the mother into an affair.