Jeremiah is a kid whose childhood is being turned inside out. He is bounced between his foster parents, his fundamentalist Christian grandparents and a vagabond existence on the road with his mother Sarah, an impulsive, insatiable, utterly lost young woman who works as a truck-stop prostitute in the Southern states of America.

Endlessly subjected to new and dangerous environments, a succession of deadbeat surrogate fathers and his mother's descent into drug-fuelled madness, Jeremiah is forced into a desperate struggle to survive and grow. It is his strength in the face of adversity and loss that becomes the focus of the story, as his purity and innocence enable him to endure a life like no other.