"Sordid Lives" is about a family in a small Texas town preparing for the funeral of the mother. Among the characters are the grandson trying to find his identity in West Hollywood, the son who has spent the past twenty-three years dressed as Tammy Wynette, the sister and her best friend (who live in delightfully kitschy homes), and the two daughters (one strait-laced and one quite a bit of a loser).
Stunning trophy wife Rachel Avery is stuck in a cold, loveless marriage with her millionaire husband, Holden. So when Holden goes away on a trip, Rachel hooks up with her close friend Carla, and the two hatch a plan to murder Holden and collect on his vast assets. But the girls don't want to commit the crime themselves, so at a bar they seduce a stranger, Travis Brewer, and convince him to do their bidding.
Precocious young Harriet and her older sister Gwen live at their mother's motel in small-town New Hampshire. Harriet dreams of a life beyond her inattentive family and the stultifying town. A mentally disabled man named Ricky comes to stay at the motel, and Harriet finds him kinder and more interesting than anyone she has ever met. After tragedy strikes, Harriet and Ricky cling to each other ever more tightly.
Wes and Nancy are a married academics couple. One day they host Nancy's long-ago lover Matt and his current sexy girlfriend Kim. Matt is a musician and Kim is a computer specialist who helped Matt to make some discovery in his science. Wes suspects Kim of stealing 50 dollars from him and that starts tension, intrigues, mistrust.
Lying, stealing, and charming their way through the state in a quest for the truth about their convict dad and his stash of cash, three sisters turn Texas upside down in just 48 hours.
A sultry woman joins an illiterate killer and a brainy hacker, both escaped convicts, to search for gold.
