Nature as few have imagined it. A windswept desert thick with spring - the flash of primrose, treeless hills shining in the sun.

And in the distance, all but lost in these great sweeps of rock and sky, a group of teenagers fresh out of suburban America, struggling desperately to build new lives.

Lives beyond crack and crystal meth, beyond sadness, beyond a pain that has brought many to the brink of self destruction.

In Shouting at the Sky, award-winning writer Gary Ferguson is once again bound for the backcountry, this time to spend a season in one of the country's most remarkable programs for at-risk teens.