Various characters play a significant part in the story including Mary's ambitious and eventually unhinged cousin Sita Celestine, the best friend that Mary steals from Sita and Wallace Pfef, a pillar of the Argus community who is unwittingly drawn into Mary, Celestine, and Karl's very unusual 'family.' What little that can be considered plot in this book revolves around Celestine and Karl's daughter, Wallacette nicknamed Dot, who was born on Wallace Pfef's couch during a fierce winter blizzard.

Karl's life is marked by a rootlessness that sees him becoming a traveling salesman later in life. Mary inserts herself into life in Argus with an overbearing force that will define her entire life. From there, Mary and Karl's lives proceed in vastly different directions but ones that also bind them together for life. Within a few moments of their arriving in Argus, Karl is frightened by a barking dog and flees back to the train. Mary arrives with a fierce need for a survival and a willingness to make herself absolutely indispensible to her aunt and uncle to achieve that end.

The story begins with Mary and Karl Adare, whose mother quite literally got in a plane and flew away for good, reaching Argus, South Dakota by train during the Great Depression. It's about flawed characters loving each other in flawed ways.

The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich