After being decommissioned from the US Army, strong minded Hazel Motes decides to relocate to the city rather than go back to his small southern town where he no longer has any family, or any semblance of a home, either emotional or physical. In meeting Asa Hawks, a blind sidewalk preacher, and his assistant daughter, Sabbath Lily, Hazel, reacting against Asa's preachings and perhaps in knowing that they are perpetrating a scam, decides to start his own sidewalk church, one that does not believe in God, sin or evil, or that will collect offerings. In doing so, Haze, in turn, garners strong reactions from various people he meets. Asa doesn't like what "business" Haze may take away from him, while Lily is attracted to him. Haze obtains a groupie in the form of Enoch Emory, relatively new to the city and without friends, he searching for his place in life and something in which to believe. Another sidewalk preacher, Hoover Shoates, wants to profit off of what Haze has started. And while Haze initially lives with Leora Watts, who operates a "rooming house" which is more a single person brothel, he ends up moving into the same rooming house where Asa and Lily live, the landlady who has a motherly attachment to him. Through all these encounters, Haze ultimately demonstrates how strong his devotion is to his beliefs regardless of anyone or anything else.—Huggo