Every Thing Is Possible

From the minute Matt Aymer enters Montauk University in 1969, he is confused, energized, and educated by the social, moral, political, and personal unrest of the 60s all around him. The university lurches from unity to chaos as Vietnam War protestors, Black Power militants, and women's rights activists shut the school down unpredictably. Drugs are as available as if they were legal.

Matt's openness and good nature draw a motley band of friends who are eager to educate him. With the urging of Dorman, a drug-fueled androgynous upperclassman; Lana, the gorgeous political radical; Wit, the dorm's army veteran; and Nicky, a romantic, wounded gamine, Matt learns about himself in ways he never anticipated. Matt realizes that he is truly free--free from his parents, free to express his sexuality, free to determine what he stands for, and free to control his life. It's like jumping off a cliff.

But the people who leave the deepest mark on Matt are two women nearly fifty years apart in age-Bonnie Williams and Mrs. Devin. Bonnie shows Matt that a commitment to politics doesn't have to be boring and that sex doesn't have to be hidden. Mrs. Devin, a 70-year-old Dean of Students shows Matt and everyone else in the school that being an adult is not a foreign country or a forbidden substance.

Matt is drawn into the student government, which is dominated by the student body president, Joe Kashman. Kashman is either deeply committed to the welfare of the student body or a drug dealer whose only interest is power. He presides over the chaos on campus as if it is an opportunity. Matt and his friends decide they can either sit by and let the school cease to be an oasis for growth and discourse or take action to stop the deterioration. They choose action, hatching a clever plan to restore the campus to a place that ferments learning rather than conflict.

The issues brought to the forefront in the 60s are still with us six decades later and still as confounding as they were then. Whether you are a baby boomer or Gen Z immersed in today's culture wars, you will find the quirky and irreverent engagement with authority, morality, and malevolence surprisingly current.