That Last Summer is a coming-of-age story of two Catholic Hispanic boys in San Francisco's Mission District. Because his mother has recently been deported to Mexico, thirteen-year-old Richie now lives with eleven-year-old Joey and his family. Richie is supposed to receive his First Holy Communion in the Catholic church and his mother desperately wants him to receive the sacrament in her absence, current state of affairs notwithstanding. Richie strikes a friendship with the young priest teaching his Communion class. Richie's feelings of isolation and abandonment, his friendship with Joey, the priest and his adoptive family, and his growing distance from his mother, all form the core of the drama.