The Rope Walk is a luminous coming-of-age story that unfolds over a crucial summer in the life of young New England girl. At her tenth birthday party, Alice meets two people unlike any she’s ever known: Theo, a mixed-race New York City kid visiting his grandparents for the summer, and Kenneth, a famous artist with AIDS who has come home to convalesce. Alice and Theo form an immediate bond and are soon drawn to the magisterial artist. But Kenneth is losing his eyesight, and when Alice and Theo begin reading aloud to him from the journals of Lewis and Clark, they decide to embark on an adventure of their own, with unexpected results.