Peter Federson lives in Chicago and is burned out on modern technology and life in the 21st Century. He takes a train ride to his alma mater-SIUC-and through a strange series of events, finds himself re-living the last few weeks of spring quarter 1971. He's determined to win the girl he should have married in the first place, not flunk out of school because of a poor algebra grade like the firs...t time, and change his miserable future. But can he? Peter struggles with his pathologically nervous nature, and struggles with something else inside himself that refuses to let him repair his past. And that, coupled with a sadistic algebra instructor, an ex-wife to be who refuses to go away, a street party which leads to Carbondale City Court... and a riot, makes Peter Federson wish he was back in the 21st Century.