Uprooted from his native Brooklyn, yearning for independence from his overbearing father and relief from his obsessive thoughts, young concert pianist Joshua Brightman finds unlikely friends in his New Orleans neighbors, matriarch and gifted healer Annie Faris and her granddaughter, precocious twelve-year-old bookworm Sam. While Sam grieves over the recent loss of her father, Annie struggles to heal Sam's terminally ill mother. In their search for health and peace, Joshua, Annie, and Sam learn what barriers exist between death and life, between disease and healing, and the price they must pay to overcome them. Their stories play out against the backdrop of an Eden lost, a wounded, post-oil-spill Louisiana, and the ongoing struggle for survival of her people, wildlife, and those mysterious, mystical marshes.