In June of 1930, when Maybe Rose Tucker is five years old, her mother is murdered, her father is a suspect, and if looks as if the murderer is after Maybe. Much of Maybe's time is spent on a swing hanging from a limb in the old pecan tree in the front yard of the Tucker mansion in Blue Valley, Mississippi. Maybe struggles to fit into the nightmare world she occupies. She daydreams, worries and eavesdrops and all the while is a little girl eager to please the adults in her life while in a situation she cannot possibly understand.