In 1946, Laura McAllan struggles to raise children without electricity or running water on her husband’s failing Mississippi Delta farm. As the war comes to an end, two young men return to work the land.

Jamie McAllan, Laura’s brother-in-law, is everything her husband is not–charming, handsome, and haunted by his memories of combat. Ronsel Jackson, eldest son of the black sharecroppers who live on the McAllan farm, has come home with the shine of a war hero. But no matter his bravery in defense of his country, he is still considered less than a man in the Jim Crow South.

It is the unlikely friendship of these brothers-in-arms that drives this powerful novel to its inexorable conclusion.