Penguin Solstice - militant feminist, straight-A student - tries to burn down a fraternity house, site of a gang rape where the guilty walked free. Expelled from her Ivy League college, the failed arsonist retreats to her father's Cape Cod summer home to reconsider radicalism and her place in the world. A new stepmother, a local drug-running Vietname vet, an environmental battle to save local marshlands and a composer completing his final work before he dies of AIDS - all provide a different education. Graducally Penguin works to understand her relationships with family and friends and finds that she must learn to feel - not just think - her way through life...
