After winning a beauty contest in Texas, a teenage girl is unprepared for the demands of travel, press conferences and interviews that go with winning the title and participating in a national beauty pageant.

In the turn of the century South, a woman feels unfulfilled by marriage and motherhood and has an affair with a younger man. Later, the woman leaves her family and tries to start a new life alone.

When a former member of a religious cult dies in a mysterious accident, Martha, who now lives alone and close to the cult's church, begins to fear for her life and the lives of her visiting friends.