After his father died, Tom took the 1971 Impala that his father had bought the day he was born and drifted from one side of the country to the other, grafting limbs on fruit trees but keeping himself unattached. The years were a blur of seasons, and trees he'd nursed to health turned to witches brooms, gone wild on slopes where there had been apples and pears. Now that grafting season has become too dry and he's received word that his mother left a trunk for him before she died, Tom sets out on one last trip.
Both Tom and the car are older. The Impala stutters on the hills, and when he sleeps in the front seat he reaches for both the steering wheel and the brake. His path littered with breakdowns, hitchhikers, family visits and memories, Tom begins to check the ditch for the permanent lay-by. The story of a drifter yearning to come in from the cold, Going to Ground speaks to all of us who left home too early and fear it's too late to return.