In 1960, St. Philip’s School, a famously exclusive boys boarding school, grudgingly admits its first scholarship student. As the nursery to America’s aristocracy, St. Philip’s has no notion what to expect of 13-year-old Woodrow Scaggs, the white son of an autoworker. Will he even eat with knife and fork? Woodrow believes that if any boy calls him a certain name, he must fight him to the death. Of course, he is called that name on his first night.

In Pontiac, boys equally stupid and equally wonderful in spite of class differences, weave their own lost-boys culture and form life-lasting bonds.