Using the children's surgical ward of a large metropolitan hospital in California as his microcosm, Powers populates the ward with a sampling of children who represent the most significant ills of contemporary society. He focuses on how these children interact with a society that essentially has cast them aside. More important, he demonstrates how these children create their own society, a society within a society.

The spotlight Powers aims at the children also encompasses Linda Espera, a compassionate physical therapist in her early twenties, and Richard Kraft, a surgical resident in his early thirties serving a rotation on the ward.

Powers examines what happens to a sensitive young man who initially anticipated a career in music when, a decade later, he finds himself a sleepdeprived medical resident forced on an hour-to-hour basis to deal with insoluble dilemmas.

Kraft reacts by withdrawing emotionally from the maelstrom that...