At 26, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home. For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery. Now her disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables. But Fanny has another secret in store. She has won a spot on “America’s Beauty Extreme,” a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that already has claimed her mother’s face, she must confront the corrosive reality of the American Dream that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.