Chance Murphy, a 13-year-old living in Morganville, Indiana during the mid 1980s, is full of contradictions. He wants to be a man, but he has the needs of a child; he loves his mentally
handicapped sister, but he also resents her and wishes she weren’t such an easy target for the other kids; he is witty, but he embarrasses easily, especially when it comes to dealing
with his emerging sexual feelings. Though Chance has a big heart, he has a dark side that surfaces in dreams of nuclear obliteration and manifests into paranoia and an "enemies list"—at the
top of which is his archenemy, Otto Manheim, the neighborhood kid. While the tension between the two creates many comical moments, the conflict escalates and finally reaches a boiling
point at the bloody battle of Morganville.
