Lucy married at the turn of the last century, when she was fifteen and her husband was fifty. If Colonel William Marsden was a veteran of the "War for Southern Independence", Lucy became a "veteran of the veteran" with a unique perspective on Southern history and Southern manhood. Her story encompasses everything from the tragic death of a Confederate boy soldier to the feisty narrator's daily battles in the Home--complete with visits from a mohawk-coiffed candy-striper.

Upon his discharge following the Korean War, soldier Jerry moves back to the small town in South Carolina where he grew up. Jerry is reunited with his old flame Leslie, gets a job as an insurance salesman and begins to heal from the emotional damage caused by the war. But Jerry faces a serious moral dilemma when the job he depends on for his livelihood leads him to take advantage of an elderly African-American woman and the members of her community.