Tony Pettyjohn grew up in a textile town, Maple Grove, North Carolina, raised by a good-timing, single mother in the home of an abusive grandfather until sentenced to reform school for stealing a blouse for his mother's birthday. After release he worked in the cotton mill in Maple Grove, beginning as a cloth boy and rising to foreman until sent to prison for a murder his mother committed. The Loom Fixer explores living and working in a textile town and mill, including life outside, the good times and bad times. A life now gone for good.