With three grown children and a lifetime of memories, Penelope Keeling realizes that something is missing: the simple joy she knew as a child playing on the beach. So she embarks on a journey to discover the secret of happiness for her friends, her family and herself.

Abington College, very small, antique, once women-only New England college, is venerable and broke, hires a butch Jewish PhD from Brooklyn to salvage what can be in the face of crashing enrollment and desperate need to retain full paid tuition students despite their academic deficiencies. Add to this crisis management, Amanda Hyde (with Jekyll as foreground), English, former au pair girl employed by a New York mafia family, now head of the Abington...