Assigned to locate land in the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma that can be converted into pig farms for his employer, a young man meets the residents of Woolybucket and comes to respect their fierce desire to retain their land.
Told from their own viewpoints, seventeen-year-old Jill, in grief over the loss of her father, and Mandy, nearly nineteen, are thrown together when Jill's mother agrees to adopt Mandy's unborn child but nothing turns out as they had anticipated.