Children of the Canyon tells the story of David, a boy growing up in L.A.'s fabled Laurel Canyon neighborhood as the 1960s counterculture is coming to an end. David's record producer father works with the reclusive former leader of a surf music band on an album that promises to elevate the legacies of both men to immortal status. His distant, peripatetic mother rides the waves of activism and feminism in and out of David's life. The elusive Topanga, named for the city's last remaining Eden, whom David meets on the beach the night of his parents' separation, continues to elude his futile attempts to reconnect with her throughout the decade. Through David's eyes, we bear witness to the fallout from the California Dream's malfunction: the ruined families, failed revolutionaries, curdled musical idealism, and, ultimately, the rise of the conservatism that put the country on its present path.