In 1969, three weeks after completing jail time for petty larceny, Lou Jean Poplin, a strong-willed but uneducated woman in her twenties, visits her husband Clovis at a Texas pre-release prison farm, where he is serving the last four months of his sentence for a crime they committed together. Confused by the bureaucracy of the child welfare system, Jean has been unable to regain custody of their baby, Langston. Because she and Clovis are considered “unfit” parents, Langston has been given...
