Bernadette Brent and her father Billy has been through a lot together: losing a wife and mother to the Dust Bowl, Billy drinking his troubles away with his three buddies, and Bernadette having to work part time as a seamstress.

Jeannie Clemons is a high school graduate working at a diner and living with her hardass Korean War vet father. She doesn't have the guts to leave him, but she does however know another way to vent.

The year is 1982, Chen is a selectively mute Chinese immigrant who drifts to the Deep South, his intention was to pass through but he meets a sweet young woman and he will do anything in the world for her.