Forty-five year old Lizzy is bringing up her fifteen year old son in rural Vermont, since her older son Daniel has left on his own after graduation.
It is 2007, the Iraq war is raging under President
Bush and the economy is terrible. Daniel is a musician
with a congenital eye defect and Nicolas is undergoing
several neurological tests due to mysterious seizures.
Lizzy, a free thinking, nonconforming, free spirit, is
struggling for independence and identity, after becoming estranged from her wealthy, right-wing Republican parents when she became pregnant out of wedlock with her older son, then married another man, Nicolas's father who abandoned them. She works for survival, doing every job from house cleaning to waiting tables to bar tending, although she has long
ago given up her dream of being a ballet dancer.
Daniel's best friend joins forces in Iraq, and between hard times, Nicolas and Daniel's health
issues, along with the bitter winter of New England,
and her lack of finding a suitable man, thinking all
the while that her charm and direct assertiveness will
suffice, she finds herself tempted to settle for a man
she does not love or go back crawling to her conservative, New England parents.
It is a statement about our times, single parenthood,
politics and the limitations and problems 'American boys' face in our society. This is why it is called American Boys, my boldest statement ever on all topics.
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