Cornelius Suttree, having abandoned a life of privilege, takes up life as a river fisherman on a dilapidated houseboat near Knoxville, Tennessee, where he encounters an assortment of eccentrics and outcasts.

The author fashions a darkly beautiful elegy for the American frontier. It is 1952 and John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working as ranch hands in New Mexico. The change comes when John falls in love with a Mexican prostitute and sets in motion a chain of events.

America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst the destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world that is utterly devastated.

A young boy, an old man, and the outlaw who has unknowingly killed the boy's father, all try to resist the changes brought about during the period between the wars

When Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon a group of murdered men, a stash of heroin, and more than two million in cash, he makes a rash decision and takes the money, which soon puts himself and his young wife in danger as they are hunted by a ruthless drug lord.