Stotan!—which begins on November 5, 1984 and ends on March 10, 1985— takes place mostly at Frost High School in Spokane, Washington, where Crutcher attended college and lives today. Athletics are very important at Frost, which the narrator, Walker Dupree, describes as a "jock school." In fact, according to Walker, the athletic council is more influential than the student council. The swimming program, however, is being phased out.

Spokane itself contains a variety of neighborhoods and people from markedly different backgrounds, each with his or her own set of problems. Walker finds his own upper-middle-class neighborhood sterile and isolationist, while Elaine's neighbors are like a family. At the time the novel takes place, a racist newspaper, the Aryan Press, is circulating around town, and several students, including Marty O'Brian, a baseball player, have begun to espouse its ideas. Towards the end of the novel, the swimming team leaves Spokane...