A gifted piano student is tormented by her domineering mother. A story of apocalyptic mother-daughter violence and perversion, as told by the girl's best friend Maybelline Windsor, a fellow college student who herself is tormented by jealous sorority classmates. Her stark, penetrating voice is a model of epic simplicity, which transcends into a deeply spiritual and poetic picture of dark family secrets, and a history of private mother-daughter pain and suffering.
Born in poverty in the Appalachian Mountains, Maybelline was adopted by a wealthy family named Windsor, raised in million dollar privilege and deep emotional neglect. At her small, mountain university in Asheville, North Carolina, she meets gifted Asian piano student Jennifer May, a promising young prodigy who was brutally trained by her strict and overbearing mother. When Maybelline meets Jennifer's beautiful, charismatic mother, she is shocked by the reality of behind closed doors truth, and the revelation of unimaginable suburban depravity. Their powerful and disturbing story is a glimpse at the modern mother-daughter dynamic unrestrained, and the latter day rise of hidden family violence and tragedy.