A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

In an attempt to impress his emotionally distant father, a boy ridicules his mother, who has loved him unconditionally even in his father's absence. Wracked with guilt, he yearns for her forgiveness - only to find that she does not hold it against him.

As a boy grows to adulthood in the years encompassing WWII, and his understanding of the world changes, so too does his perception of his schoolteacher father evolve from respectable teacher to embarrassing clown to free-spirited man.

A series of vignettes about various sons along a family tree.

A father tells his twenty-year-old son how he was married suddenly to his son's mother at a young age.

A man thinks about his relationship with his parents (especially his mother) as he watches them grow old. He then realizes that he is now old too.

A man reflects on his complicated summers with his father.

An elderly man realizes his troublesome son is the only thing keeping him going.

At a Blues Festival, a fourteen-year-old boy talks to his father for the first time but does not reveal who he is.

In an epistolary-like work, a father must choose between a job he loves and his relationship with his son.