Its Christmas Eve, 1938, and 15-year-old Cassidy Smith is very pregnant with the child of 40ish Reed Hooker. Cassidy is desperate to marry Reed, Reed is desperate to open Louisianas hottest new taxi-dancing emporium and neither are prepared for the arrival of Reeds wife, Sue Jack Hooker, a dangerous beauty who has just been let out of the penitentiary. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Beth Henley spins one of her most colorful tales, as she follows a hilarious band of neer-do-wells trying to scratch dreams from the Louisiana mud.