The story takes place somewhere in New Orleans in a neighborhood of Sicilian immigrants. There lives Serafina, an Italian impulsive woman, who reacts violently when she learns that her dead husband was not loyal to her. Having idealized her relationship, sharing it secretly only with Virgin Mary, she is left to the absolute lamenting and becomes the victim of gossip from her neighbors who see her personality to be distorted as she wanders half-naked, acts irrationally towards her child and speaks roughly to everybody. When however she meets the comic truck-driver Alvaro, the man with the artificial rose tattooed on his chest, her life changes and she gets released by the social oppressions. The writer narrates a story of love, passion, despair, a story of authentic life.