This story involves romance, nostalgia, and tragedy. A young couple search for an extraordinary life lived through icons in art and cinema while overcoming racism during America's immigration crisis, parental abuse, and mental illness. Set in a small farming town in Naples, Michigan, the reader is introduced to a young painter, Lucca Martilla, and Madelyn Marsden, both introverted and scared who battle through emotional insecurities to find strength and acceptance.

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Explore the mind of creativity as Lucca corresponds to famous artists while studying their methods of painting. It does not matter whether van Gogh or Picasso are deceased, as his imagination blends fiction into reality. Through masterpiece of art, the love between Lucca and Madelyn takes root. They share wonderful moments of creativity until her parents' racist views of Lucca being Mexican-American force her to break off their relationship.

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Isolated and vulnerable, Lucca returns to the field to safeguard his self-esteem from further critique as he transcends himself through icons like Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot for clairvoyance and an extraordinary life lived through icons of art and cinema. In contrast, Madelyn embraces the nightlife, open relationships, and dreams of working in the world of fashion. Both escape an adolescence filled with physical abuse when they go away to college.

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Lucca's experiences at art school led him further from innocence to debauchery, while Madelyn shines bright at school and her internship at a fashion studio in New York City. The reader follows the triumphs and the losses of both Madelyn and Lucca as they experience separate lives and relationships away at college until they reconnect during a lecture in Nice, France.

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Considered a Psycho-Rom, this story is analogous to Mayberry R.F.D. directed by Federico Fellini. A story that involves romance and tragedy where The Midnight Cowboy becomes a love story and The Summer of '42 goes beyond nostalgia.