18-year-old Ezra has graduated from high school and is drinking the summer away. He has no intention of going to college—and would never dream of converting to Christianity—but a religious experience on an acid trip somehow results in both.

Seeking a fresh start from his difficult relationship with his family and his own self-destructive tendencies, he enrolls at Jacobs, a small Christian liberal arts school. There he meets a group of classmates, including the intriguing Kitty Williams, who quickly complicate his modest expectations.

When a same-sex encounter in Ezra’s dorm sparks campus-wide fear and backlash, tragedy results, and Ezra’s life and faith are changed forever.

Beggars in Heaven is a coming-of-age story set in upstate New York in the early 1990's.