Hannah Sinclaire, the teenage daughter of a fiercely conservative Southern preacher, contracts AIDS through a one-time sexual encounter with the local playboy. Hannah's fall and illness marks her as the embodiment of what her father and his rising social organization, People for a Better America, are fighting against. Shunned and rejected as immoral, damned, and deserving of death, she is put away in a hospice for HIV and AIDS patients. Hannah's younger sister, her only support, pledges to resist their father's pressure to let "the sinner" bear the consequences of her choices "outside the camp," but quickly disappears from Hannah's side. Wasted in body and spirit, and devoid of the company of "good people," Hannah struggles to find life, love, and healing.