When Hoyt Jackson returns to Memphis after World War II, he carries with him a Luger and a load of guilt over the deaths of the men he sent into battle. As he sits in his room above his favorite bar, ready to use the gun on himself, he is saved by a vision of those men. Modernized out of his job as a tinsmith, Hoyt takes his savings and a bottomless mason jar of whiskey and moves to the outskirts of Holly Grove, Mississippi, in his Airstream, intending to live out his life drinking and watching his fields change with each season. Hoyt's temporary bliss is interrupted by the arrival of a beautiful teenager, Jenny, and her down-and-out family, who Hoyt befriends out of pity and loneliness. As their friendship grows, the two become involved with Sissy, a high-stepper from Hoyt's past, and Randy, a local high schooler, who rescues Jenny from the town bullies. When these four come face to face with Ethan, an evil moonshiner who is tormented by demons and booze, they have to face the dark side in themselves and the Delta. Their experience echoes into the hearts of the characters and the countryside in which this novel is set.