12-year-old Lonnie Garth was born and raised in Holston Mill, in the hill country of Tennessee. The Holston family owns most of the businesses and industry in town, and treats its residents as property. Because Lonnie is beautiful, her father has forbidden her brothers from sleeping with her in hopes that one of the Holston boys will become interested in her.

Sure enough, Tim Holston, the most educated and refined of the Holston boys, happens upon Lonnie while she is swimming naked in a pond and he instantly falls in love with her. He convinces a judge to marry them, even though she is still underage. The couple moves into the Holston mansion, but when Tim returns to college, Lonnie is left alone with his womanizing brothers and father. First one brother rapes her, then two of them rape her together. Lonnie finds that she enjoys the forced sex. Then her sister-in-law begins a sexual affair with her too, and finally her father-in-law.

When her husband dies, leaving her forever trapped in an abusive and incestuous home, Lonnie becomes an alcoholic.