In 1936, in a small town near Charlottesville, Virginia, an aging black caretaker and his sister shot dead a white sheriff acting on orders to turn them off their land. Bloodroot explores the circumstances leading up to the violent standoff as seen through the eyes of Elsa, a young county employee fresh out of school and filled with aspiration and illusion, and those of Wesley, the fifty-year old caretaker of a vanished family's estate. While Elsa struggles to retain her authority and self-respect, Wesley is haunted by past concessions and his sister's attachment to the land. When he stands in the way of a proposed turpentine plant by refusing the county's purchase offer, both Elsa and Wesley find themselves moving relentlessly toward an end neither wants to reach.