In the early 1930s, Texas farmer Dove Linkhorn, with what little money he has, makes his way to New Orleans to find a former love, artist Hallie Gerard, after not having seen her in three years and not knowing where in the city she would be or what she is doing. Despite their relationship only having lasted four months at that time, he wants to marry her, and is only looking for her now in a change in his circumstance allowing him to do so. If he does locate her, he will find that she is a changed woman also under changed circumstances, she living and working at the Doll House, a high end French Quarter brothel. What eventually happens with Dove is affected additionally by three women he meets in his search for Hallie. First is teenage Kitty Twist, a penniless drifter who is attracted to Dove herself. She will steal from anyone she meets including Dove, she especially taking pleasure in bilking who she considers caring in they being what she is not. Second is widowed Teresina Vidaverri, who, all on her own, runs a truck stop, including a café, store, and gas station, at the edge of New Orleans, and willingly helps Dove in his quest in wanting to foster true love despite she too wanting him as an integral part of her life. And third is Jo Courtney, the madam at the Doll House, who views her girls as her property in having gotten most of them out from dire circumstances, she additionally treating Hallie as special and thus going to extreme measures to keep her seemingly at all cost.
—Huggo