"Adults are people who understand the connection between their decisions and the consequences of 'em," declares Robert Colum. Much of the novel is devoted to the lesson that actions have consequences. Jennifer, the main character, is about seventeen years old, and it is she who learns Robert's lesson. At the novel's beginning the narrator notes, "Her virginity was genuine and she intended to keep it that way, for now." Yet in a short period she becomes eager to lose her virginity.

She meets John the Lutanist, a man perhaps in his thirties, who is handsome, romantic, and a minstrel. In reality he is John Turnbull, a man who wanders around the United States performing at fairs. He returns to the Minnetonka Renaissance Fair every fall where he invariably finds a young woman to give his heart to; Jennifer is one of those young women...