An accomplished but ineffectual columnist searches for fulfillment, until a death in the family causes him to question the family he took for granted.

A Canadian graduate student and his wife are living in France and often socialize with their peers at concerts and dinner parties. They soon make friends with an established novelist, but as the student continues to meet people he begins to question who he can trust and who his real friends are.

Writing a foreword, a man reflects on his relationship to a writer and said writer's wife.

A man walks with a writer around London who tells him about the novel he wrote that was lost which can never be matched in beauty by any other.

After the suicide of his elderly and famous brother, an auto parts salesman recounts his brother's life and details his willingness to hurt everyone who loved him in the name of art.

A man recalls his intimate friendship with his former English professor, who resolved to fuel his unsatisfied desire for playwriting during the time they were apart. In their reunion decades later, instead of the brilliant play he promised, the professor shows his former student a disturbing product of his mental instability.

A young writer attends a writer's workshop where she begins a relationship with an author whose books she loves. But after they move in together, she finds that his life begins to suffuse every aspect of hers.

A Confederate officer begrudgingly fights in the American Civil War until his disastrous last battle helps seal the fate of the war for good. After the war, he constantly repents for his critical mistakes until, decades later, he comes to a shocking revelation about the fateful battle.

Having sacrificed his dream job to financially support his marriage, a man realizes there is sexual tension between his wife and his friend. Ultimately, he makes tough decisions about both his friendship and his marriage.

After spending his adult life under the shadow of his father, a former NSA whistleblower, a man comes to terms with his complicated family history and what he wants for his own future.