Norman, nicknamed El Demente, "the crazy one," hitchhikes and hops freight across the southern United States in search of Ma-to him, MaBelle-and his ragtag family. Afflicted with syphilis and a head wound from pimping at a Mexican whorehouse across the Texas border, he struggles in both a mindless and lucid state to reach their "dream home" in the California desert before the endY. Finley, the youngest brother, has filched the farm tractor battery to replace the one stolen from the family rattletrap. This brings the opening day of corn harvest to a screeching halt. Sylvester, a sadistic ex-Marine of a foreman, is sent to retrieve the stolen battery at a funky gas station where a fourth grease-monkey brother, N.A., works. This triggers the first of many fistfights and death threats. Sylvester despises MaBelle's boys because the gigolo second eldest, Pete, has made a conquest of his high-rolling live-in love, Phoebe. Meanwhile, Pete's long-suffering pregnant wife is past due to deliver. This turns into a life-and-death breach birth, which further bogs down corn harvest, and results-after a hayride, rape, and murder-in the eviction of MaBelle's brood back to "God's country" from whence they arose.
