Institute History
Description
It's 1982 on suburban Long Island, and when we meet Scott Bartlett we find a 14-year-old boy who is growing up in the eye of an emotional hurricane.
Scott's hardworking father Mickey has turned his small Queens-based construction business into a mini-empire, with his latest and largest venture just on the horizon: Bartlettown. It is a modern-day Levittown, his masterpiece, his life's work. Meanwhile, Scott's adoring mother Brenda, who has spent the last 20 years raising Scott and his older brother Jimmy, now 19, is starting to show signs of severe depression.
As it turns out, somewhere between Queens and Long Island the strong family values Brenda and Mickey were raised with have eroded. Mickey is absent most of the time, presumable consumed with his latest project and opting to spend many nights in the model home. This causes Brenda to feel increasingly isolated and displaced since moving from her comfortable Queens neighborhood. Meanwhile, Jimmy, who abruptly joined the Army after high school, has returned for a furlough, only amplifying and unwittingly stirring up the family's deep-seated conflict. Scott watches as his parents' marriage fails and his idealistic view of his father is forever shattered, while he himself awkwardly and sometimes painfully discovers the opposite sex.
Just down the street, fellow suburbanites the Brags have problems of their own. The head of the household, Charlie, had come down with a rare illness, Lyme disease. His wife Melissa is forced to get a job selling Mickey's tract homes. As the story unravels so do their lives.
Lymelife chronicles the moral deterioration of these intertwining families. Seen through the innocent eyes of Scott, it is a poignant yet often humorous look at an American family navigating a tumultuous time.