Once in a Lifetime

In 1984, punk is rampant. Andy Warhol rules. And 20-year-old art student Jessica is sick of all the excitement going on without her. Hungry for the life she’s convinced is just beyond her fingertips, she sets her sights on an avant-garde study abroad program in London she can’t afford. Meanwhile, hometown boyfriend Drew wants to see other people if he’s not exciting enough to keep her stateside. Jess and her buddies rent a beat-up apartment, trolling new wave clubs and waitressing double shifts in a cool restaurant town to scrounge-up tuition money. Then Jess meets Whit, a steamy daredevil of a guitarist who crawls through her window and makes her head spin like a record. The girls battle cheating waiters, mystics, a military drag queen, a Svengali bouncer, and the specter of AIDS. Before long, Jess has to decide if the men in her life will leave her as damaged as her cracked-glass mosaic art projects—and whether they’ll stand in the way of her dream semester in post-punk London.