The following version of this novel was used to create the guide: McBride, James. The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Riverhead Books, 2023.

In the small community of Pottstown, PA, a Jewish immigrant named Moshe Ludlow works tirelessly to get his small theater off the ground while courting his eventual wife, a woman named Chona who suffers from a debilitating limp thanks to a childhood battle with polio. Encouraged by Chona's open-mindedness, Moshe decides to open his theater up to Black audiences, a decision that turns out to be extremely profitable and beneficial to the community. Meanwhile, Chona operates the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, a business she inherited from her father, Reb, and uses it to provide mutual aid to the Black and immigrant families in her neighborhood, Chicken Hill. After some time, Chona becomes extremely ill, and the Black community in Chicken Hill comes together to look after her, a collective effort that eventually results in Chona's recovery. At the same time, however, a young, disabled Black boy named Dodo finds himself orphaned, and is taken in by Addie and Nate Timblin, both of whom work for Chona and Moshe.

Moshe's good friend Malachi, a mysterious Hasid whom he has known since the early days of his theater, decides to leave town because he feels that the Jewish community there is being overtaken by the Black one. In the wake of Malachi's departure, Nate approaches Moshe and asks him to shelter Dodo in the basement of the theater so that the authorities will not be able to discover him. Chona insists that Dodo stay at their house instead, and, with the help of her estranged friend from childhood, a Black woman named Bernice Davis, works to keep Dodo hidden from the eyes of the state. Dodo's situation becomes fraught, however, when the man from the state reaches out to the local physician, Doc Roberts, and plays on Roberts' deep-seated racism and membership in the Ku Klux Klan to convince him to head to Chona's store and root out Dodo's whereabouts. Doc, who has always harbored romantic feelings toward Chona in spite of his antisemitism, agrees to do as the man from the state says, but things go awry when he arrives at the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Chona becomes so upset that she has a seizure, Doc takes advantage of the opportunity to attempt to sexually assault her, and Dodo, after intervening and exercising physical violence against Doc, is remanded to state custody and brought to Pennhurst State School and Hospital.

Because Dodo cannot hear or speak, he is assigned to a low-functioning ward with horrible living conditions when he arrives at Pennhurst, but manages to make friends with a boy in his ward whom he calls Monkey Pants. Meanwhile, in Chicken Hill, the community reels from the fallout of Chona's assault; Moshe's businesses slide into disarray and Nate begins to harbor murderous impulses in his desire to avenge Dodo's wrongful incarceration. Bernice's brother, a local handyman named Fatty, becomes increasingly wary of Nate's rage, but finds himself inadvertently drawn into the efforts to free Dodo when he is approached by a local Black woman named Paper Millison toward whom he harbors romantic feelings. Meanwhile, it begins to percolate within the city's Jewish community that one of the city council members, a man named Gus Plitzka, has been siphoning town water away from the shul in order to water his dairy farm, and Moshe's cousin Isaac endeavors to speak with Fatty, whose father, Shad, helped Chona's father, Reb, connect the water to the shul in the first place. As these factors converge, Chona suffers a tragic death in the hospital, and is mourned by members of the Black and Jewish communities alike.

At Paper's urging, Fatty agrees to accompany her to a nearby neighborhood called Hemlock Row, which is considered a dangerous, lower-class area by the residents of Chicken Hill; there, a woman named Miggy Fludd, who comes from the Lowgod family of South Carolina, agrees to help Paper find Dodo and warns her that an evil person named Son of Man works on Dodo's ward. Meanwhile, at Pennhurst, Son of Man makes his first appearance, threatening to sexually assault Dodo as soon as he has healed from his injuries. In Chicken Hill, Isaac distracts Moshe by inviting Malachi back to town and takes their reunion as an opportunity to begin working with Addie and Nate not only to free Dodo but also to bring about retribution for Chona's attacker, Doc Roberts. He manages to get in touch with Bernice, who contacts Fatty with information both about orchestrating Dodo's escape and repairing the water situation for the local shul. At the same time, Paper brings together Addie, Fatty, Miggy, and Nate in order to coordinate Dodo's rescue, and Fatty reluctantly agrees to work with the people of Hemlock Row.

Isaac works with Marv Skrupskelis, a local Jewish shoemaker, to arrange for some Jewish union workers to help Dodo escape from Pennhurst by train. Meanwhile, Nate learns from Fatty that Isaac has paid him off and encourages Fatty to both fix the pipe for the shul and pass along some money so that he can pay off the union rail workers. Dodo narrowly escapes a sexual assault at the hands of Son of Man thanks to the efforts of Monkey Pants, who dies in the process of defending his friend. In Chicken Hill, the town begins to prepare for a celebratory parade, while Nate sneaks into Pennhurst on an egg cart, murders Son of Man, and helps ferry Dodo to safety. At the town parade, a hitman arrives from Philadelphia to rough up Plitzka, but accidentally mistakes Plitzka for Doc and pushes Doc into the well that Fatty and his friend Big Soap have opened in order to repair the shul's pipeline. Nate successfully transports Dodo to safety in South Carolina, and Doc's body is not found for decades.