Plot

With every opportunity exhausted, a one hit rock and roll wonder comes home to his once broken city -itself on the rebound- to seek redemption.

Jack Ainsley was a star, a rock star. He had a hit record, a rabid following and money to burn. He also had an ego the size of his tour bus and a soul-crushing temper to match, until one night it all evaporated, right in front his eyes. Now, 15 years later he finds himself back in the place he couldnt escape from fast enough, and to the tattered remains of the family he'd left behind.

In a city that is as much a character in this story as Jack himself, Asbury Park NJ. The Jersey shore music scene hot bed that birthed Springsteen, Bon Jovi and Southside, and the legendary Stone Pony. A city that is no stranger to the struggles between its own out-sized aspirations and the realities in which it lives. A city of broken dreams and faded glories. A city, like Jack himself, now on the verge of rebirth.

Jack's sister Carrie has been holding things together with twine since he left. Their mother's increasing dementia, and her daughter's own burgeoning independence threatens to completely extinguish any remnants of her own neglected ambitions. But she is characteristically unbowed in carrying on the daily responsibilities and obligations of supporting a family and a home. Jacks return reunites the siblings and sets off a story of dashed dreams, self-doubt and betrayal. It also poses the question; to what degree can the unconditionality of familial bonds be stretched?

Along the way Jack externally basks in the adulation of old friends and former lovers who still see him as a hero, while internally loathing them for all the attention because he cant afford a pack of smokes . A stark reminder of the depth to which he's sunk and the place to which he's been forced to return.

Jack's arrogance and self-determination have been replaced by humility and a dependence upon his family that he never dreamed possible. As he tries to make peace with his diminished standing in the music world as well as in his own childhood home, he attempts to rebuild his life. Brick by brick and lyric by lyric. Until an old friend comes calling with just what the doctor ordered, one more fix. One more shot at the big leagues. One more chance at redemption. It forces Jack into making a choice between the dream of a new life and the reality of an old one. And at what cost?

Jacks not the only person ever to forget that those who want everything, are most likely the people who forget that everything they need may have been right there all along