The Bean Trees centers on Taylor Greer, formally known as Marietta “Missy” Greer, a young girl from Pittman, Kentucky. The girl abandons the life that she was pressured into in favor or a more liberal one, but fails to predict the chain of evens that will follow her newly self-proclaimed identity. At the beginning of the novel, Missy Greer remains in her childhood home, bent on avoiding marriage and pregnancy, which she believes would lead to the conclusion of her own life and aspirations. She decides to head out on her own, taking off in a barely-functioning car and driving until the gas runs out. She takes a name after the city her car ceases in, Taylorville. Her car breaks down in a Cherokee Nation area of Oklahoma, and she promptly finds
