Labor Day 1976, Martha's Vineyard. Summering at the family beach house along this moneyed coast of New England, Fern and Edgar - high school sweethearts now married with three children - are happily preparing for a family birthday celebration. The lobster is in the pot, the birthday cake in the oven, and the sun-baked family happily exhausted from a day on the water, when the phone rings. the unimaginable has occurred: There is no more money. More specifically, there's no more money in the estate of Fern's recently deceased parents, which, as the sole source of Fern and Edgar's income, has allowed them to live in this beautiful, comfortable life despite their deeply professed anti-money ideals. Quickly, the once-charmed family unravels. In distress and confusion, Fern and Edgar are each tempted away on separate adventures. Back at home - where each parent believes the other to be - the three children are left for days with no guardian whatsoever. Armed with canned beans, a teepee, and a moving self-sufficiency, the offspring improvise their own Neverland, helmed by the tender, witty, and resourceful Cricket, age nine. As Fern, Edgar, and Cricket's paths divide and reunite, the characters must make crucial decisions about their own values, about the space they occupy in American history, and about the inner world of their family.