Ursa Corregidora, born and raised in Kentucky, has grown up listening to her mother tell her Grandmama, and her Great Gram's stories. Both of the older women, no longer living, were slaves in Brazil to a man named Corregidora. Desiring more income, he forced Great Gram to become a prostitute. He also got her pregnant with her daughter -- Grandmama. After Great Gram could no longer stand that life, she ran away. Corregidora took out his fury on Grandmama, making her his concubine. She bore him -- her own father -- several children, including Ursa's mom. These brave, unfortunate women have preserved their stories of sexual violence and domestic abuse for generations, begging their daughters to pass on the tale. More importantly, they advocate for the importance of having children, daughter, to whom the old stories can be passed as a legacy.
Ursa finds herself compromised by this tragic ancestry. She believes in her grandmother's stories and how important they are to pass on to the next generation, but she doesn't feel particularly qualified to be a mother. In fact her passion is singing. She's a blues singer at a bar called Happy's. Remembering her short marriage to Mutt Thomas, she's eager to move on with her life. Over twenty years ago, she married Mutt and they were alright for a while. He had fallen in love with her on stage, but he tried to force her to quit singing out of jealousy after they married. When she refused, he pushed her down stairs unwittingly forcing her to miscarry a baby. Not only that, but Ursa was injured in the fall and had to have a hysterectomy which means she can no longer have children. Needless to say she divorced him shortly afterward. Now Ursa finds herself at a crossroads. She's desired by many men, but she can no longer have that all important family that she's been dreaming of, so she throws herself into her career.
She moves in with the owner of the club, Tadpole McCormick after the divorce. Although they get along better, he's a drunk and soon starts abusing her. Ursa starts singing at a different club, Spider's. She learns that Tadpole has been sleeping with the headliner who took over at Happy's after her, and she says good riddance to him. She's still soul-searching.
Bearing the last name of the man who abused several generations of her women in her family -- Corregidora, -- Ursa decides to learn more about what force that identity has brought into her life. She talks to her mother about her romantic experiences only to learn that her mom blames being raised with those stories for forever intertwining her sexual impulses with violence. Ursa herself has to admit that she expects for romance to end in violence or abuse. After years of unconsciously bearing this weight, she finally admits to herself that this unconscious expectation may be what inspired her same-sex attraction. She makes peace in her soul with those desires, convincing herself that she is allowed to write her own story. She renews her passion for singing and even works her family's stories into her songs somehow. Around this time Mutt returns desiring to patch things up, which Ursa receives well.
