Around the Fire is the deeply resonant story of a boy named Simon, who despite being raised in an upper-class Manhattan household with all its privileges--and restrictions--is haunted by the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of his mother. In Simon's eyes, his high-powered businessman father Matt wasted no time in remarrying his stepmother Lauren, a woman with a perfect facade whom he suspects of having an affair with Matt long before his mother's demise. When Simon is sent away to boarding school in preparation to attend Princeton, he meets Andrew, who introduces him to marijuana and LSD, and immerses him into a whole new world populated by dreamers, artists, utopians, flower children and partiers who spend the better part of their lives "on tour" at musical festivals. Simon is deeply moved by the beauty and freedom of these people, and feels they are the family he has always sought.