Set during a long, hot summer on the Thamesmead Estate in Southeast London, where three teenagers edge towards adulthood.
Emma Woodhouse has a rigid sense of propriety as regards matrimonial alliances. Unfortunately she insists on matchmaking for her less forceful friend, Harriet, and so causes her to come to grief. Through the sharp words of Mr. Knightley, and the example of the opinionated Mrs. Elton, someone not unlike herself, Emma's attitudes begin to soften.
In 1955 Florida, a Korean vet has a breakdown and is incarcerated in a "maximum security" mental health prison, where patients are abused.
