At the heart of "Plain Seeing" is the myth of beautiful Emma Laura, whose Hollywood dreams are destroyed by the birth of a child. At 21, that child, Lucy, tells her lover Gordon: "I come with nothing, a motherless child." 25 years later, as Lucy recovers from a terrible injury that almost severed her foot, she finds the accident mirrored in her life. Gordon and their daughter Laurie want to leave; even her lover has betrayed her. In childlike pain, she flees to her Aunt Opal in Texas. There, a visit to a Depression-era photography exhibit launches her on a quest to understand her mother's young life. Unexpectedly, it leads her to the father she wasn't seeking. In Hollywood, where her mother might have been a star, she finally faces her perennial grief, and begins to live a true and present life.
