Angels of the Great Plains Motel is the story of what happens over two tumultuous weeks at a motel, restaurant, and nightclub in a small town in the upper Midwest. In the fall of 1975, America is in something like the half-slumber of a Saturday afternoon nap after a rough week. Leisure suits are everywhere, even on “The Tonight Show.” Gerald Ford is caretaker-in-chief of the White House. Olivia Newton-John warbles “Have You Never Been Mellow” and Glen Campbell belts out “Rhinestone Cowboy” on pop and country radio stations. Bell-bottoms are wide, sideburns are long, and whatever sexual inhibitions America had seem to have dissolved in alcohol.

Big Sioux Valley, Iowa would be the most somnolent place in the sleepy country were it not for the Great Plains Motel, whose lounge is referred to by regulars as the GP. The GP is a home-away-from-home for long-haul truckers with side businesses in pharmaceuticals, road musicians, salesmen, and the local women who crowd the bar for cheap drinks on Wednesday. On the periphery are the town’s residents who work hard for a living, including the luggers, cutters, and pullers at the town’s meat packing plant. The County Line Express rolls into the GP for an open-ended gig, with Carl, a good-looking but inexperienced guitar player; Brandon, a road-weary drummer; and Ronnie Lee, a semi-famous Cajun country/pop singer sought by the IRS and his ex-wife’s attorneys, who now finds Big Sioux Valley’s remoteness to his liking.

At the center of Angels of the Great Plains Motel are lessons learned by Carl, including the differences between cover tunes and original material and between song lyrics and actual love. Around them swirls the trouble that follows from mixing perpetual travelers with people who don’t expect to be going anywhere any time soon. The Great Plains Motel is where all of them meet, and the results–during two weeks in November of 1975–are explosive.