It's not every day that a boy's father is killed by lightning and his mother gets thrown in jail for drunken behavior, but that's James' lot in life. In his small Texas town, James is treated as a pariah at school, taunted as being cursed because of his family's bad luck, but has found a friend in a fellow outcast, a Russian immigrant boy. As their unlikely friendship deepens, family secrets are revealed, and James discovers what just might be his true purpose in life.