The book is based in the 1940s after the depression and during the middle of the Great War. It's about a black girl, raped by her mom's boyfriend, got pregnant, put out having to make it on her own, and ended up killing her uncle for an attempt to harm her child. She runs away from Chicago to Louisiana where she finds work as a maid to a prejudiced old white woman, a former schoolteacher, with dementia, where this woman meets the girl's daughter and, seeing how smart she is, decides to work with her. In working with her, her brain begins to come back, along with other things happening, and the three of them become united.