Camp Bravo

In the tumultuous 1960s, Blake – a young man newly arrived in Los Angeles – gets hired at a camp for juvenile offenders, where he finds himself immediately plunged into a near-riot and its aftermath. Although his only experience has been coaching juvenile sports, he is expected to demonstrate control of 96 boys in Camp Bravo. The rigors of working with fellow staff are equally demanding; the men bandy about phrases like “therapeutic community” and “reality counseling”. But that's of little help to the new man, who searches for his own source of strength – guided as much by what the teenagers teach him as by his ongoing discovery of who he is. Untutored in the necessary camp therapies, he is nonetheless assigned cases – and one of his boys requires more skill than Blake thinks he has. Nonetheless, he tries to help the damaged boy, even at the risk of losing his job. Two other boys’ stories are also woven through the narrative, reflecting the impacts – good and bad – that the camp system had on the boys.