Anna Coleman is the youngest daughter of a wealthy cotton mill owner struggling to salvage his failing business as textile mills over the Deep South begin shutting down due to the growing popularity of polyester and cheap overseas labor. After years of suffering horrific abuse at the hands of their father, Anna and her two sisters eventually inherit the declining mill and transform it into the largest, most successful carpet and tile distributor in the southeastern United States. Despite being born into southern aristocracy, two of the sisters marry men far beneath their own social status and wealth. Anna marries Gene Longhorn, a poverty-ridden farmhand whose bitterness over his lot in life becomes his downfall, resulting in tragic consequences for the family he adores.