1948 Los Angeles. An industry is thriving, but this is not Hollywood. Clay and mineral deposits feed the famous California potteries: Metlox, Bauer, Franciscan, and 19-year-old Hank Cleveland leaves his Hollywood family for his much older lover, Susan, one of the top designers. But Hank's world is overturned when encounters with strangers and lost friends unravel Cleveland family history—bright as a Bauer bowl, fragile as a Metlox figurine, and layered with a glaze of lies.