A tragic tale of sex, murder and redemption, from deep within the soil of America's heartland. Forbidden passion and buried sexuality play out against the backdrop of a town where the only place to go crazy is inside. The heat has withered the faded Iowa farm town Ellen Biddle still calls home. Pale corn stalks fill the landscape as the never-ending drought stretches onward. Eighty-two trains a day whistle through this land, a desert painted in corn, filled with ghostly images of things that were. For Ellen, home is stifling, airless. In a moment of blinding clarity, Ellen frees herself from one destructive burden, only to find she is further enmeshed in the sins of her past and the town's hidden secrets. Now, as the rains still refuse to come and the rails sing out, Ellen's well-built facade crumbles and her private life bursts into flame.