Lewis Chopik has at last graduated from Columbia University. Fleeing the pressures exerted by his ambitious professor father, and having just been dumped by his girlfriend, Lewis returns to Wichita in search of respite at the home of his New-Ager mother, Abby. But when Abby picks Lewis up from the airport, she reveals that she's starting a storm-chasing business and then passes Lewis a graduation gift of $5000 in cash, which turns out to be the proceeds of a feminist Ponzi scheme called The Birthday Party. Lewis soon learns that his mother is also indulging a polyamorous lifestyle. One of her boyfriends, a chemist and professor of 'futures studies,' lives in a tent in the yard and has a drug lab in the basement. Another unexpected obstacle to Lewis finding the respite he longs for is Seth, his charismatic yet troubling bi-polar younger brother. Seth is back home to unveil the new tattoo emblazoned on his chest that reads, 'In Loving Memory of Seth Chopik'.
A story by turns comic and portentous, written in prose that is supple and precise, Wichita Explores the bonds of brotherhood and the fortunes of a family whose members hold vastly different notions about how—and why—to live.
