Set in the Texas/Mexico border country, a desert made lush through human will, The River Beyond the World spans nearly half a century in the lives of two very different women and their families.

After leaving her Sierra Madre village, Lusia Cantú finds work in the Texas border town of Rio Paradiso as a housemaid for Eddie Hatch, a woman of strong opinions and a narrow worldview. The two women begin an intimate battle of wills as Eddie asserts her place of privilege while Luisa, subtly but stubbornly, risking the loss of the spiritual power she knew as a girl, tries to assert her own. By turns mystical and mannered, comical and deeply affecting, the story of these to women moves through decades of change, until their complex relationship reaches a painful moment in which each must decide what matters and what can be forgiven.