Henry McAllan courts Laura Chappell and proposes marriage, ending her resignation to lifelong spinsterhood.

Eboline's husband kills himself, prompting Henry to buy a Mississippi farm without consulting Laura.

The family arrives to find the rental house already sold to another man; they are forced into a rundown farmhouse.

Florence Jackson nurses the McAllan girls through whooping cough and begins keeping house for Laura.

Hap Jackson falls from a ladder and breaks his leg; Doc Turpin sets it deliberately without pain relief.

Ronsel Jackson returns from World War II decorated as a tank sergeant with medals and sergeant's stripes.

Pappy and white men at Tricklebank's humiliate Ronsel and force him to exit through the back door.

Jamie McAllan returns to the farm thin and visibly haunted by his wartime service.

Jamie and Ronsel bond over shared combat trauma after a car backfire startles them both at Tricklebank's.

Pappy spots Ronsel riding in the front seat of Jamie's truck and confronts Jamie about it at home.

Laura kisses Jamie and they have sex in the lean-to while Henry is away helping Eboline after a storm.

Klan members in white hoods abduct Ronsel and drag him to the sawmill.

Jamie bursts into the sawmill with a pistol but is beaten and disarmed by the hooded men.

Pappy forces Jamie to choose Ronsel's punishment; Jamie chooses to have Ronsel's tongue cut out.

The Jackson family departs the farm forever after Hap reads Job scripture over Pappy's grave.

The McAllan family leaves Memphis for a Mississippi farm after a family crisis, finding themselves unprepared for rural hardship and Pappy's poisonous racism. Henry's Black tenants, the Jackson family, struggle to survive while Pappy targets them with relentless contempt. When Ronsel Jackson returns from World War II as a decorated sergeant, his dignity and defiance immediately provoke the community's most violent racists. A friendship between Ronsel and the McAllans' troubled younger son Jamie brings both men comfort but draws dangerous attention from local Klan members. Laura and Jamie begin a secret affair while a stolen letter about Ronsel's German lover is used to incite an attack that leaves Ronsel mutilated. Pappy is killed in the aftermath, and the Jackson family departs the land forever.

The core story of racism, friendship, and tragedy on a Mississippi farm.

Laura meets Henry's brother Jamie for the first time at a restaurant and is immediately captivated by him.

Henry discovers the previous farm owner shortchanged Hap Jackson and promises Hap fair payment going forward.

Laura refuses to give up her piano and insists Pappy sleep in the lean-to instead.

Carl Atwood drunkenly shoots his plow horse in the night, alarming the other tenants.

Vera Atwood arrives at Laura's door badly beaten and pregnant, begging the McAllans not to evict her family.

Henry agrees to let the Atwoods stay through planting season despite Carl's violent behavior.

Laura secretly drives to Greenville and finds Dr. Pearlman to properly treat Hap's badly set broken leg.

Henry confronts Laura for finding a doctor without his permission and tells her he no longer trusts her.

Laura discovers she is pregnant and Henry becomes warm and affectionate with her again.

Vera Atwood tells Laura that Carl has been molesting their daughter Alma and storms off saying it is too late.

Laura miscarries her baby in the aftermath of Vera Atwood's desperate and frightening second visit.

Jamie gets drunk, crashes into a cow, and is jailed while his passenger Dottie Tipton is badly injured.

Henry bails Jamie out of jail and pays damages, leaving the family unable to afford a house in town.

Ronsel tells his parents he intends to leave Mississippi for good after the cotton harvest.

Laura delivers Ronsel's letter from Resl to Florence as the Jacksons prepare to leave the farm.

Before the move to Mississippi, Laura catches her first glimpse of Jamie, the captivating counterpoint to her steady but passionless husband. On the farm, small crises accumulate: tenant Carl Atwood's violence, Vera Atwood's desperation, and Henry's refusal to extend basic help to Hap after his injury. Laura secretly defies Henry to find Hap a proper doctor, fracturing their trust at a critical moment in their marriage. A pregnancy briefly restores warmth between Laura and Henry, but a miscarriage deepens her resentment of farm life and of Henry's choices. Jamie's reckless drunkenness lands him in jail and delays the family's plans for a better home, while Ronsel privately resolves to leave Mississippi after the harvest. The pool ends with Laura's quiet, grief-laden act of delivering Ronsel's letter from Resl to Florence as the Jacksons prepare to leave the land.

The everyday crises and quiet turning points that shaped life on Mudbound.

Henry proposes marriage to Laura after returning from Alabama, and she accepts despite finding his manner passionless.

Henry announces the family will relocate to Mississippi in two weeks without asking for Laura's opinion.

Florence refuses Pappy's order to fetch him water, openly defying him while staying at the farmhouse.

Henry refuses to lend Hap a mule after the accident, forcing Florence and the girls to work the fields.

Ronsel's unit liberates the Dachau concentration camp, forever transforming his understanding of hatred and dehumanization.

Ronsel falls in love with a white German widow named Resl, feeling fully human for the first time in his life.

Florence senses that Mississippi is slowly crushing Ronsel's spirit despite his celebrated return from the war.

Jamie builds Laura an outdoor shower and leaves a dish of lavender soap, deepening her love for him.

Henry tells Jamie to leave the farm after a confrontation in the barn about Jamie's drinking and selfishness.

Ronsel receives a letter from Resl revealing she has given birth to their son, Franz Ronsel.

Ronsel drops Resl's letter in Jamie's truck and Pappy finds it, delivering it to his Klan associates.

Sheriff Tacker delivers news to the Jacksons that Ronsel has been mutilated and his tongue cut out.

Pappy demands that Laura lie and provide him an alibi for the night of Ronsel's mutilation.

Jamie secretly smothers Pappy with a pillow before Florence can carry out her own plan to kill him.

Laura finds the lavender plants Jamie secretly planted for her and reveals she is carrying his child.

The seeds of the novel's tragedy are planted in Henry's unilateral decisions and in the simmering confrontations between Florence and Pappy that signal worse conflict ahead. Ronsel's wartime experiences — liberating Dachau and falling in love with a German woman — explain both his pride and his peril when he returns to a racially hostile Mississippi. Jamie's thoughtful construction of an outdoor shower with lavender soap marks the moment Laura's feelings for him become undeniable and irreversible. Ronsel's letter from Resl, dropped carelessly in Jamie's truck, becomes the instrument of catastrophe when Pappy finds it and delivers it to the Klan. In the aftermath of the sawmill attack, Pappy's grip on the household ends when Jamie smothers him in the night before Florence can act. The novel closes on Laura's discovery of the lavender Jamie secretly planted and her private revelation that she carries his child.

The key decisions and revelations that drove Mudbound to its devastating conclusion.