Relocating to an apartment with her two children to be closer to her mother, Gretchen offers to help clear out the home of a reclusive neighbor's recently deceased mother and discovers that the neighbor, Melissa, has two siblings and an identity that she never suspected.

Evan Walls describes his experiences being a black child growing up in the racially charged 1960s. Inspired to overcome the racism and class status imposed on blacks, he dreams of a life bigger than that lived by almost everyone he knows in the small Virginia town of Canaan. He is resented by friends and family for desiring a life better than theirs. Among the smartest in his class, Evan becomes a target of white kids threatened by the forced integration...