The Vietnam War and the act of conscription irrevocably change the lives of four teenage Australians.
John Mitchell, a bespectacled bass guitarist from Melbourne with a fatalistic notion of becoming an Anzac like his emotionally fragile father and grandfather before him becomes mates with two very different characters he meets in the army who he would never have otherwise crossed paths with. Trevor "Chubby" Jackson, the apparent heir to an outback West Australian cattle station and Hedley Yangaboora, an Indigenous stockman from the same property.
All three are caught up in one particularly debilitating 'friendly fire' incident in Vietnam from which only the least likely character, Hedley, manages to get his post-war life back in order.
The fourth character, Frankie Jamieson, is an unrelentingly positive individual who others tend to lean on. She struggles to maintain her studies at Melbourne University while singing in a pop duo with her childhood friend Cindy Fong, granddaughter of a Chinese pear orchardist. Frankie is drawn into the protest movement.
The story explores the teenage years of all the characters leading up to the boy's names being drawn from the infamous televised spinning barrel. John and Frankie's independent journeys through the band scene of 60's Melbourne, Hedley's battles with ingrained racism and dislocation and Chub's grappling with the complexities of trying to learn how to run an outback cattle station in the 1967 referendum era when unpaid Indigenous labour came to an end.
Frankie's story unfolds in stark parallel contrast with the other characters as they negotiate Infantry training in their very different ways. Through Frankie, the reader experiences the street marches and eventual Police raid on Melbourne Uni's Union Building. She quits the pop duo but not her friend Cindy and becomes a protest singer around the pubs and clubs of 1970's Melbourne. Her love affair with Jack, a draft resister being supported by his union, leads to marriage and eventual tragedy.
The incident in Vietnam infuses a dark uncertainty that hangs in the background of the story until the end. Hedley loses his right arm in friendly fire and both John and the reader believe John fired the shot. John keeps this to himself.
After the boys are unceremoniously discharged they try to come to terms with what they have been through and grapple with 'normality' again.
In later life Frankie meets John and they discover their past band connections. This is no 'senior romance,' more social worker and desperate gutter dweller. Frankie facilitates a reunion of the veterans on Hedley's cattle station. If there is a single hero in this story it is Hedley but he takes his time coming to the forefront. Once there he is unstoppable, an inspirational voice leading through extreme adversity. It is his casual revelation to John at the reunion that puts to rest the lingering mystery from the Vietnam incident and makes a mockery of lost lives.
