Summaries

Synopsis

In 1962, single mother Frances Lacey is fired from her job at a potato chip factory after standing up to her vulgar supervisor, and returns to her run-down apartment and six children: Lynn, Faye, Murray, Annie, Craig, and fifteen-year-old delinquent Shayne. That night, Frances decides to leave Los Angeles, California, to find a decent town in which to start a new life for her family. After selling their belongings, the Laceys cram into the family car and drive east, with no destination in mind. When the car breaks down, the children push it to the nearest mechanic and Frances offers her wedding ring as payment for the repairs.

Outside Hankston, Idaho, Frances stops in front of an unfinished wooden shack across the road from a nursery, owned by a Japanese-American widower named Mr. Munimara. Although "Mr. Moon" is hesitant to sell the three-acre property to a woman with no money, Frances suggests her children perform chores for him in return. As the Laceys begin construction on the house, Frances secures a job as a waitress at the town bowling alley, while Shayne works at a local dairy farm but remains restless and eager to return to Los Angeles. As the family's work progresses, Mr. Moon contributes to the renovations and makes windows using spare greenhouse glass. Although he says Frances does not owe him anything, she insists she will eventually repay him. At the church resale store, Frances refuses charity from Father Tomlin and opts to save money by making the children's clothes instead, eliciting ridicule from their fellow classmates. Murray gets a job at a salvage yard and brings home various items, including a toilet, a gas stove, dishware, and a sofa.

While repairing the roof one day, he falls from a second story ledge and is impaled by an exposed nail. Shayne removes the plank and is forced to carry his brother several miles to the hospital, but the boy is released without major injury. At school, Shayne is ridiculed by his physical education teacher for wearing a shirt that was accidentally tinted pink in the laundry. After being banished to sit on the girls' bench, Shayne meets Raymi, and decides she is his "one good reason" to stay in Hankston. On Thanksgiving, the family celebrates with Mr. Moon. Although he is not a religious man, Mr. Moon says grace, thanking God for bringing the Laceys into his life. One day, Frances accepts a date with the bowling alley manager, Norman, which bothers Shayne.

On Christmas, the Lacey children are disappointed to receive construction tools, after they gave their mother thoughtful presents and handmade gifts. Fighting back tears, Shayne angrily accuses Frances of caring only about the house, and she threatens to beat the boy with his late father's belt. The argument is interrupted by the arrival of cheery Mr. Moon presenting Frances with blueprints to the rest of the house, which she stubbornly returns. She swallows her pride and drives to town to ask Father Tomlin for the donated gifts she previously refused, but he informs her he has given them away. Upon her return, Mr. Moon tells Frances that he began building the house as a surprise for his son and daughter-in-law, but the boy died fighting in the Korean War. That night, Frances confesses her exhaustion, comparing the job of supporting the family to "pushing a car uphill." As Frances begins to date Norman, Shayne becomes increasingly testy and talks back to his mother, who finally beats him. After five days of not speaking, Frances reminds Shayne of the responsibilities he must maintain as "man of the house," and he apologizes. After excitedly buying Shayne a blazer to wear for his first date with Raymi, Frances goes out with Norman, who takes her to a motel to have sex. Offended by his presumptuousness, she refuses his advances and fights back as he threatens to force himself on her. When Shayne returns home, he finds his mother crying in the car with a bloody face. As he cleans her wounds, Frances makes him promise to never hit a woman. Shayne says he knows the pain of being beaten, prompting Frances to nail her husband's belt to a tree outside. Shayne attacks Norman at the bowling alley, and the older man punches him in the stomach. After the incident, Frances assumes she will have to quit her job, but is relieved to discover that her sympathetic boss already fired Norman instead. Once the family finally installs indoor plumbing, Murray celebrates by burning the backyard outhouse. Ashes flutter onto the roof of the house and quickly ignite, destroying the dwelling and all its contents. Once the debris clears, Frances finds the family's savings jar and exclaims that everything will be okay, but Shayne challenges her optimism. They fight until Mr. Moon arrives moments later with several townspeople who selflessly offer to rebuild the house. Although she finally accepts their charity, Frances only permits them to return to the structure to its state before the fire, and the Laceys spend an additional six months finishing the construction. When the work is completed, the Laceys and Mr. Moon take a photograph in the front yard, and Shayne decides to stay with his family in Hankston.