A twelve-year-old boy in 1970s New Jersey deals with brutal bullies, tyrannical Catholic nuns, and two surprise additions to his crazy family during the Bicentennial.

SYNOPSIS:

THE MCKENNA CHRONICLES begins in 1976 in the Fairview section of Camden, New Jersey. It centers around the McKenna family with Thaddeus “Tad” McKenna as the 12-year-old protagonist attempting to negotiate adolescence while his older brother Danny, a Vietnam War veteran, attempts, rather unsuccessfully, to adjust to civilian life.

Enter Vuong Thuy, the mother of 5–year-old Dinh, Danny’s son from his time in Vietnam.

Against the background of a parochial and predominantly all-white neighborhood in the midst of change, Danny, Thuy, and Dinh will try to make a go of it as a family in the face of certain prejudice, including from Danny’s father Jimmy, while the rest of Tad's family rallies around young Dinh, his mother Thuy, and Danny.