For seventy-five years, one tragic event has shaped the lives of three generations of women. Now a granddaughter must uncover decades-old secrets and betrayals, and force her family to face painful truths so that healing can begin. The story begins in 1927 in Mississippi, where Cora Harvey has decided to pursue her dream of being a singer. Naive and trusting, she heads to Chicago, where she is quickly and violently stripped of her innocence by her new employer. Fleeing back to Mississippi, she marries her local sweetheart, never revealing to him the horrible truth about her time away. When she delivers baby Emma, whose features are unmistakably white, the marriage ends under a cloud of hurt and shame. Emma grows up lonely and bitter, shunned by members of the close-knit town. Plotting her own escape - in her case to New York - she decides to try for a better life by passing for white. It will be up to her own daughter, Parris, to look beyond the fragile facade of Emma's life and discover the truths that ripped the family apart - and which may ultimately bind them together once more.