When Mermaids Sing

In the early 1970s, religious cults aggressively recruited baby boomers who were coming of age in a new era of experimentation and self-pursuit. Many parents, desperate when a child would disappear into a cult, resorted to hiring a "deprogrammer" who would, usually surreptitiously, "extract" the child from the cult and use deprogramming techniques to convince the child to return to the family. This practice was extremely controversial and often resulted in criminal and civil actions, as well as good newspaper copy.

Larry Brown is a young, self-absorbed junior high school English teacher in Medford, Massachusetts with serious relationship problems. One weekend he meets Jenny, a young woman who is attempting to extract her brother from a cult that has an ashram on Cape Cod. Larry soon discovers that his cousin, Bradley, is a member of the same cult. With the help of Sam Henry, a feared deprogrammer also known as "Black Lightning," they kidnap Jenny's brother and Bradley from the ashram and Larry is forced to face the hard reality that his cousin is in a precarious emotional state. Larry's comfortable liberal principles are tested, and his cherished childhood memories are shattered by the ordeal.