From acclaimed Hollywood actor/director James Franco comes a stunning work of fiction - the coming-of-age of a whole generation. PALO ALTO traces the lives of an extended group of teenagers as they experiment with vices of all kinds, struggle with their families and one another, and succumb to self-destructive, often heartless nihilism. Franco presents a stark, vivid, disturbing, but, above all, compassionate portrait of lives on the rough fringes of youth.