Howard Belsey is an Englishman abroad, an academic teaching in Wellington, a college town in New England. Married young, thirty years later he is struggling to revive his love for his African-American wife, Kiki. Meanwhile, his three teenage children - Jerome, Zora and Levi - are each seeking the passions ideals and commitments that will guide them through their own lives.
After Howard has a disastrous affair with a colleague, his sensitive elder son, Jerome, escapes to England for the holidays. In London he defied everything the Belsey's represent when he goes to work to Trinidadian right-wing academic and pundit Monty Kipps. Taken in by the Kipps family for the summer, Jerome falls for Monty's beautiful, capricious daughter, Victoria.
