Paul and Kate Sumner are the embodiment of virtue in their conservative rural community, and their children follow the tradition of excellence. When fifteen-year-old Kristina Sumner is forced to kill a classmate to prevent a school shooting, the brutal act triggers a mix of shock and outrage. Public scandal escalates as upstanding members of the community, faced with their own moral dilemma, find themselves pinned beneath the critial small-town microscope, as powerless to control the same type of harsh condemnation that has dogged the Sumners, and just as determined to silence it.