Tom, the eldest son, returns from the war in the Pacific to Whittier, a small Southern mill town. Disillusioned and cynical from his war experiences, he wonders aimlessly around the town where nothing ever seems to change. When his younger brother is mysteriously killed in New Orleans, Tom travels there to bring the body home only to encounter a trouble he did not anticipate, but could not avoid. With a terrible dark secret which he thinks is behind him, he quickly returns to Whittier and takes parttime work performing errands for the town's prominent lawyer, Theo Hatcher who becomes a mentor and a friend. The Pruitt family is then virtually destroyed when the mill is sold to a faceless Northern corporation. In a fleeting happiness, Tom finally finds solace in the love of a local girl, Maggie, who has struggles and dreams of her own. Seemingly close to coming to grips with his past demons, Tom is caught up in a horrific incident when a local black man is falsely accused of murdering a white taxi drive and is subsequently arrested, sealing Tom's fate.
Mill Town is ostensibly the story of the Pruitt family, but more poignantly, it is a story of a changing South and its ramifications for the people who experience the inexorable passing of a way of life. It is, in the end, a story of hope. Hope set against the backdrop of disillusionment, hatred, violence, and, alas, love.
