In 1886, Gretta Pope wakes one morning to discover that her husband is gone. Ulysses Pope has left his family behind on the far edge of Minnesota's western prairie with only the briefest of notes and no explanation for why he left or where he's headed. It doesn't take long for Gretta's young sons, Eli and Danny, to set off after him, following the scant clues they can find, jumping trains to get where they need to go, and ending up in the rugged badlands...

A meticulously crafted portrait of the American nuclear family in crisis charts the rift that forms within a 1960s Montana household when the father and breadwinner abruptly departs to fight the forest fires raging nearby, leaving his restless wife and teenage son to pick up the pieces. A deeply human look at a woman's wayward journey toward self-fulfillment in the pre-women's liberation era and a sensitively observed, child's eye coming-of-age tale....