Dusty Waters is a ghost story, a family saga, the history of a haunted house, and a biography of a folksinger. Dusty's friend, Katharine, has volunteered to help her write the official biography, but there is one piece of her life that will not be part of the biography, she can see ghosts; Dusty's ancestral home Tanglewood is filled with them. This inherited sight adds a vexing dimension to her psyche that becomes an uneasy burden. After her boyfriend, Emmett James, drowns, his amiable ghost haunts her property while his body languishes in a persistent vegetative state at a nursing home. When he gently encourages her to live her life, she takes the difficult path toward her guitar-slinger/folksinger dream with fellow musician, Percival Sheridan.