A woman and her young son are traveling together by car through the southern and midwestern United States in the mid-1950s. As the mother drives, she and the boy, Roy, talk about their lives, their disappointments and dreams. Wyoming exists as a state of mind rather than an actual place, a place neither the boy nor his mother have ever been to, an idyll where the two of them can live an untroubled life. Told entirely in dialogue, the story of Roy and his mother traverses both real and imaginary states of being, on a tour through an uncertain but hopeful landscape of longing and myth. As Roys mother tells him, Everybody needs a Wyoming.