1955. A descendent of a signer of The Declaration of Independence and a member of “Philadelphia’s impoverished aristocracy,” Francis Hopkinson Delafield Jr. is eighteen when his story begins. He lives in a proper suburb of Philadelphia, has recently graduated from an equally proper New England boarding school, is fluent in French and, after working in a paper mill in Canada, will be on his way to Dartmouth. Fran travels to Quebec with his life-long friend, Potter Morris. There he is introduced to fly fishing and, for the first time in his life, accepts the friendship of a gay man, René Jaud. He falls in love with René’s niece, Lisette, only to have Potter end their stay abruptly to return to Philadelphia to attend to a debutante who thinks is pregnant. Potter’s predicament turns out to be a false alarm, but Lisette’s phone call to Fran a month later, doesn’t: she is pregnant and wants him to marry her. His parents are convinced that Lisette is after their money—that she may not even be pregnant—and that Fran should offer her $5,000 to have her pregnancy “taken care of.” Lisette rejects the money and Fran marries her and strikes an uncomfortable deal with his parents: Lisette will live with them during his early days at Dartmouth, at least until the baby is born. The fact that Lisette is Catholic, is not “of the manor born”, and speaks very little English make her an embarrassment to Fran’s parents and in a few months she retreats to Canada after accepting the $5,000 from Fran’s father. She confounds Fran further by refusing to answer his attempts to reach her. He assumes that she has sought an abortion and had their marriage annulled and, angry at his parents and the world in general, quits college, joins the Army, is badly wounded in Vietnam and returns to civilian life, still in love with Lisette. 1963. Fran marries Maisie Bingham, an old debutante flame, and starts to make a new life for himself in another proper suburb of Philadelphia while the war in Vietnam escalates and the country is in civil and cultural turmoil. His marriage to Maisie is a routinely happy one, although she is ever mindful of her home-wrecking reputation (she had an affair with a married man when she was a teenager). When Fran and Maisie learn that they can’t have children and that the physical problem is Fran’s, he wonders how Lisette could have been pregnant with his child and convinces himself that his father was right, Lisette’s story was a lie. 1967. On a fishing trip to Quebec, Fran’s host (and family doctor) confesses that Maisie is the one who is infertile, leaving Fran to wonder why she would lie to him. At the fishing camp he is re-united with Lisette who is dying of cancer. She tells him that she never had their marriage annulled and introduces him to their 11-year-old daughter, Francine. Once back home, Fran confronts Maisie about her lie. She defends herself by saying she couldn’t stand the thought of being a home wrecker in his mother’s eyes and “barren” as well. She leaves Fran to be with his first love and the child she can never give him. After Lisette dies, Fran brings Francine home to Philadelphia where he and Maisie are reunited. His mother is in the hospital, seriously ill, and he visits her and then his father to tell him all that has happened with Lisette, Maisie and his daughter, and shows him a letter he had written to his parents in case he had been killed in Vietnam. His openness causes his father to apologize for his erratic behavior regarding Lisette and Maisie, saying that he was trying to have Fran’s mother accept his apology for having an affair with his secretary. The next day Fran’s mother dies. At her funeral the family members learn that her final words were un début, both her apology and permission for them to start anew.