Beginning in 2024, when society in the United States has grown unstable due to climate change, growing
wealth inequality, and corporate greed,
Parable of the Sower takes the form of a journal kept by Lauren Oya Olamina, an African American teenager. Her mother abused drugs during her pregnancy and left Lauren with "
Hyper-empathy" or "sharing": the uncontrollable ability to feel the sensations she witnesses in others, particularly the abundant pain in her world. Lauren grows up in the remnants of a
gated community in the fictional town of Robledo,
California, twenty miles from
Los Angeles, where she and her neighbors struggle but are separate from the abject poverty of the world outside. Outside of the community are numerous
homeless and mutilated individuals who resent the community members for their relative affluence. Public services such as
police or
firefighters are untrustworthy, exploiting their positions for profit and making little effort to help. Lauren's father, a
Baptist pastor and college professor, holds the community together through Baptist religion, mutual aid, and careful use of resources, such as making bread from
acorns. However, Lauren is increasingly certain that despite all efforts, society will continue to deteriorate and the community will no longer be safe; Lauren secretly prepares to travel north, as many do in search of rare paid jobs. The newly elected radical, authoritarian President Donner loosens labor protections, creating a rise in
company towns owned by foreign businesses. Lauren privately develops her own new belief system based on the belief that "God is Change" is the only lasting truth, and that humanity should "shape God" in order to aid themselves. She comes to call this religion
Earthseed. Lauren's younger half-brother, Keith, rebelliously runs away to live outside the walls of the community. For a time, he survives by joining a group of ruthless thieves who value him for his rare literacy, but he is eventually found dead after
torture. Later, Lauren's father disappears while leaving the community for work and is accepted as dead. In 2027, when Lauren is eighteen, the community's security is breached in an organized attack by outsiders: most of the community is destroyed, looted, and murdered, including Lauren's family. She travels north, disguised as a man, with Harry Balter and Zahra Moss, two survivors from her community. Society outside the community walls has reverted to chaos due to resource scarcity and poverty. U.S. states have become akin to city-states with strict borders. Money still has value, but travelers constantly fear attacks for resources or by
pyromaniac drug-users,
cannibals, and wild dogs.
Interracial relationships are stigmatized, women fear sexual assault, and
slavery has returned in the form of
indentured servitude. Lauren gathers people to protect along her journey and begins to share the Earthseed religion, which is developing into a collection of texts titled
Earthseed: The Books of the Living. She believes that humankind's destiny is to travel beyond the deteriorating Earth and live on other planets, forcing humankind into its adulthood, and that Earthseed is preparation for this destiny. Lauren's group meets an older doctor, Bankole, who reminds Lauren of her father. Bankole joins the group and Lauren finds herself attracted to him even though he is nearly 40 years older than she. They begin a sexual relationship and agree to marry. Bankole takes the group to the land he owns in northern California near
Cape Mendocino, where the group settles and Lauren founds the first Earthseed community, Acorn. The novel concludes with an excerpt from the Biblical
Parable of the Sower. ==Sequel novels==