California was supposed to feel different.

In Episode 2, Allan finally gets there: the Pacific at midnight, Hollywood, beaches, television studios, Tijuana, Disneyland—and a week alone with an aunt whose nonstop stories begin to wear away at the trip.

What starts as escape slowly becomes something stranger: a place where movie sets look smaller in person, landmarks refuse to be reached, and the California that Allan imagined begins to come apart under closer inspection.

In April 1989, eighteen-year-old Allan is about to leave Three Rivers, Wisconsin for California—but first there are family fights, a complicated friendship, a girlfriend he’s afraid to touch, and a growing conviction that the plane might crash.

Based on the journal I kept at eighteen, Big Summer is a coming-of-age memoir about friendship, family, obsession, escape, and the hope that somewhere else might be different.