John Dupre, a junior at West Virginia University, is an English major on the Dean's List dressed up as a Beatnik cowboy, the folk-singing 'resident outsider' before nonconformity became a youth uniform. "Morgantown" is a masterful ensemble piece centring around John and peopled by his unforgettable friends in the 'out crowd': Bill Cohen, the sharp-shooting, knife-throwing Zen Buddhist Harvard scholar; Marge Levine, the political radical with the Nefertiti eyes; and, William Revington, the scion of old money who has the world on a platter and can't think of a single thing to do with it. And by his girl-friends and sexual obsessions: Carol Rabinowitz, the Wyatt scholar and Jewish American Princess; Natalie, the folk-singing boy-girl with the mind of a scientist; and, Cassandra Markapolous, whom John loves but is not allowed to be in love with. And then there's the Alice in the photograph, the boy dressed up as a girl dressed up as another girl, on and on endlessly reflecting: a hall of mirrors that threatens to draw John into its vortex.