Set in Florida in 1988, Hating Harlon is about a year in the life of thirty-two-year-old Lily Green who employs dark humor as she struggles with right and wrong in a society where she believes she is an outsider by not conforming to traditional feminine roles and values. Her adolescent daughter, Marie, is a runaway with drug and alcohol problems, Lily's family ignores her, and her boyfriend, Harlon, views her through a skewed lens where she never measures up. When her only ally, her grandmother, starts an inexorable decline in health, Lily decides her independence is something she must relinquish for a stable life. The events that ensue prove that her grandmother's example, and Lily's own inner strength, compensate for the hardships of rebelling against predetermined societal roles. Lily's dilemma is relevant for that moment in history; it also rings true thirty-five years later.