In a rural Appalachian community haunted by the legacy of a Civil War massacre, a rebellious young man struggles to escape the violence that would bind him to the past.
In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.
After spending two decades in England, Bill Bryson returns to the U.S., where he decides the best way to connect with his homeland is to hike the Appalachian Trail with one of his oldest friends.
A troubled woman seeks out the child she gave up for adoption; a gay motel owner takes in a handsome drifter; and the wife of a preacher frets that a gay couple has moved in across the street. All of their lives will intersect as Loggerheads subtly draws out their secret losses and desires.
In seeking her own redemption from the one man of whom she is most afraid, 10-year-old Cadi Forbes discovers a secret sin haunting her community of Welsh immigrants in 1850s Appalachia.
Deep in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains in West Virginia, where every man owns a gun and a moonshine still, abides living legend Jesco White, "the dancing outlaw". As a boy Jesco was in and out of reform school and the insane asylum. To keep him out of trouble, his daddy D-Ray taught him the art of mountain dancing, a frenzied version of tap dancing to wild country banjo music. After his father's death, crazy Jesco dons his father's tap shoes and takes his show on the road.