Return to Freedom is a sequel to Clayton's The Backside of Nowhere. After a hurricane devastates the bayou village of Freedom, Mississippi and the town is rebuilt, three families move in to a new condo by the bay, and the loves, hates and conflicts between these families are as stormy as the hurricane they recently survived. Neighbors in the condo are Sonny Staples and Malcolm Ashton, teenage hoodlums at the beginning of Backside, now middle-aged. Sonny is an evangelical preacher with an eye for young women, and Malcolm is a grocery clerk with an alcoholic wife and three troublesome teenage children. The third new resident is Beulah Booker Taylor, who hasn't yet figured out that she is a lesbian. The tensions between these families are a storm of another sort.