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

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.

A bitter divorcee and distant father having an affair with a younger, married woman gets a call that his son has gotten into trouble at boarding school. He travels to the school, where the headmaster says his son, who beat up another student, must transfer. In a series of events that makes him increasingly bitter, he ends up making his son's girlfriend cry in a restaurant.

A disgruntled magazine proofreader returns to his childhood home in attempt to repair his parents' ongoing divorce.

A depressed son and his father living in New York struggle to communicate to one another about the son’s fears for the future and the father’s concerns for his son.

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

When a violent father receives a call from someone who claims to be his biological brother, he must re-evaluate what family means to 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.

During a Boy Scout camping trip, a father and son find some bonding time. The father particularly finds solace in the intimacy he feels towards his son during the increased interaction.