A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England school remains on campus during Christmas break. He soon forms an unlikely bond with a brainy but damaged troublemaker, and with the school's cook, a woman who just lost a son in the Vietnam War.
With sudden passing of his grandmother, Peter Latang returns to his hometown and encounters his long lost, childhood friend, Donald Treebeck. What begins as a simple favor, turns into a long day's journey into the past.
A determined Congressman, unswayed by political betrayal, a vicious media attack and a recent divorce, strives to maintain his dignity and protect a small fishing village from commercial corruption.