With the Vietnam War raging and riots plaguing the cities of America, Jim Ward, a Grand Falls High School history teacher, faces financial ruin, including loss of his job, medical expenses, and a lawsuit demanding damages thirty times his annual salary. Years earlier, when America was in the throes of World War II, the thirteen boys of Grand Falls High School Homeroom 207 formed a club they termed the "The Guys." Travel back to Jim's youth and learn the diverse and vexing events that link each of his club cohorts to his current difficulties, experience the moral dilemmas that disrupt his life, and discover whether Jim avoids catastrophe or is swallowed up in the quicksand of misfortune confronting him and his family.