It's the summer of 1960 in Atkinson, Vermont. Maria Fermoyle is a strong but vulnerable divorced woman whose loneliness and ambition for her children make her easy prey for dangerous con man Omar Duvall. Marie's children are Alice, seventeen--involved with a young priest; Norm, sixteen--hotheaded and idealistic; and Benny, twelve--isolated and misunderstood, and so desperate for his mother's happiness that he hides the deadly truth he knows about Duvall. Songs in Ordinary Time is a masterful epic of the everyday, illuminating the kaleidoscope of lives that tell the compelling story of this unforgettably family.