With home life destabilized by her father’s postwar trauma, Ellie Honeycutt seeks escape at the NASCAR speedway and in her dreams of travel and college, while her twin sister, Ida, clings to family and finds solace in her sketchbook. Their close relationship is threatened when they both fall for the same charming classmate at their new high school. But a devastating car accident renews the sisters’ deep bond and forces them to reverse their roles.

Set against the backdrop of the nuclear arms race and the 1952 presidential election, this coming-of-age story is told in the twins’ alternating voices.