Dr. Larry Martin moves to a small town, Green Meadows, to begin practice. He finds the area economically depressed and many social problems, including rape, incest, alcoholism, prostitution, a hanging, murder, and the influx of the drug trade. He falls in love with a beautiful nurse who is the girlfriend of the crooked, married sheriff. Bodies have been found in the nearby lake. On a house call, he encounters Jubal, a fourteen-year-old boy living in squalor and intoxicated. He helps change the boy's life, and Jubal becomes one of the bright spots in the town. This novel is a fictional account of some of the author's real experiences.