About an Italian family living in Roseto, Pennsylvania. The eldest daughter Nella is ambitious and determined to make a life for herself far away from the rigors of farm and factory life. But then she meets and falls in love with a handsome carefree poet Renato Lanzara, the son of the town restaurateur. When he suddenly disappears without an explanation, rumors about a forced marriage to a girl in another town and criminal activity begin to circulate through the village grapevine. Returning after five years, and a week before Nella's wedding, Renato shakes up not only Nella's life but also the lives of Roseto's townspeople. The Queen of the Big Time is a story of one family's struggle to preserve their cultural identity and family unity and of its matriarch who cannot forget her first and true love.