The Taste of Fire explores the effects of a fatal drunk driving collision on two families, the driver's and his victim's. Roger Cusak, the driver, is an essentially decent man who has made a terrible error in judgment with irrevocable consequences. David Nicholson, his victim, is an abusive lout whose memory is transformed by the cause of his death.

Roger’s wife and daughter must each come to terms with how his action changes her view of him. Susan, his wife, is initially horrified and recoils and withdraws, while Larissa, his daughter, leaps to her father's defense. As the reality of his action and its consequences register, their responses grow more complicated. Larissa becomes more judgmental and rejecting, while Susan finds herself able to make a distinction between who Roger is and what he has done.

Carla Nicholson comes to revel in the role of grieving widow, while her son Ethan finds it progressively more difficult to reconcile the beatification of his father's memory with the lifetime of abuse he experienced. After a bitter confrontation over Carla's attempts to coerce him into participating in her revisions of their family history, Ethan comes to the beginning of an ability to move beyond that history.