Every year, rich people move into the mountains and build glass houses up high. The newest build belongs to Buck B., a forcibly retired T.V. personality. Carpenters work from fall through spring to build his glass house and, in June, Buck drives up in his Mercedes and asks locals for directions to his own house. A Texan named Walter Welter calls Buck on a pay phone and asks him to pick him up and shortly later a cab driver arrives with a grilled cheese and can of pineapple juice. Walter puts his tripods, portfolios, cameras, and six suitcases into the cab and the storekeeper reckons they’ll only last a year and, by the first snow, it was. 

Buck asks Walter why he lets Albina Muth come to his house and tells Walter not to let her go upstairs. Albina has left her horrible husband for a survivalist and was being prosecuted for welfare fraud. Walter passes her one day walking on the muddy road shoulder, with her children trailing behind her, and she accepts a ride. She is ungrateful and at dinner Walter imitates the way she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Walter’s photographs are out-of-focus and vague and his photographer friends send him their own work, which depict gory scenes from hospitals and war. 

Buck and Walter drive to the mall once or twice a week and today Albina Muth raps on the passenger window with a beer bottle and she and Walter joke together while Buck looks on disapprovingly. Albina starts sleeping in Buck’s Mercedes in October and Walter finds her shivering in the dark and brings her into the glass house. Buck is limping around the house because he hit a deer while riding his bike and Albina finds this amusing. She asks to take a bath and after that she continues to come over so much that Walter throws a sleeping bag in the back of the Mercedes. He wonders what she’s done with her children, but he doesn’t ask. Every morning, she waits outside the kitchen door until he lets her in to eat and she begs to be photographed. 

In autumn, Walter photographs the hunting season and Albina continues to sleep in the car. He drives past an old poorhouse on Mud Pitch road and thinks about how he’d like to photograph it someday. One day, he goes to take the car and tells Albina to leave but she refuses and says she’ll continue sleeping in the back as he goes about his photographing business. When he gets to the poorhouse, she comes to and asks again to be photographed. This time, he obliges and poses her nude next to a small window. He orders her to crawl into the oven and then onto the stove top where she falls through the rusted metal and cuts her feet. He laughs at her and then they have sex. Later, he drops her off a bar and gives her $40 not to sleep in the car anymore. In Buck’s house, Walter develops the film and Buck tells him he wants to sell this house and move to his Boca Raton place. He tells Walter to take the car Albina ruined and go be with her instead and Walter tells him Albina is gone for good. Still, Buck tells him to leave and Walter drives away in his Mercedes with the negatives.