When her elderly father dies, Lissa Power, stripped of her identity as dutiful daughter, flees the narrow walls of her American farmhouse and escapes to France, seeking freedom and independence. Lissa studies French, loses her virginity, is accosted by troubling news from back home— gas shortages, the erupting Watergate scandal— and is exposed firsthand to a daily clash of international cultures. In a pre-9/11, pre-Covid world, Europe is a heady playground. Lissa eagerly joins bands of young American and Canadian seekers, vagabonding from country to country, bearing backpacks, Eurail passes, and copies of Europe on $5 and $10 a Day.