One day while fishing with her dad and her friends, Sue Ellen discovers the body of one of her friends in the Sabine River. Not only are they shocked to see the body, but the circumstances are disturbing. Supposedly May Lynn had gone to Hollywood to become an actress, but here she lies, dead, tied to a heavy iron sewing machine. The adults are not surprised, but Sue Ellen can't move passed it. Preventing her dad from simply tossing the body back in the water, she oversees her friend's burial nearby.
Later, she and her friends Terry and Jinx decide to dig up the body. They decide to honor May Lynn's dream by taking her ashes to Hollywood. In order to make things happen, Sue Ellen convinces her invalid mom to join them for a raft ride down the Sabine. The crew is a ragtag bunch of southern Gothic characters who interact with each other in surprising ways and illicit profound reactions from everyone they meet. Terry is a young gay boy whose mom just remarried, and the guy brought with him several homophobic new siblings. Jinx is a precocious young black girl who doubts her value because of her social position.
Their adventure is characterized by mishap and drama. They meet a handful of characters along the way who engage them in even more adventures. Not long after setting out on the raft, they discover that May Lynn's killer is a man named Skunk. He's chasing the crew because they took some money from May Lynn's person which was his. Turns out he's a local folktale, myth personified. Throughout their journey the group of four individually are called upon to make peace with their fears and failures so that by the time they arrive in Hollywood they've really accomplished something personal, as well as dealing with their grief.
