A writer finds himself entangled in the lives of his college friends, an ex-literature professor and his wife, decades after they graduate. They pursue love and their literary dreams mind a chaotic New York City of the 1960s.

A young heiress in the 1950s takes up a decades-long affair with a married architect, which seems like a safe venture until a mutual friend begins blackmailing them.

Caught up in memories of the past, a woman remembers a fateful summer dinner party at the start of World War II that left her family more divided than ever.

The daughter of draft-defying anarchists in the post-World War II era marries a man whose father died in the war. As their differing pasts lead to resentment in the present, she engages in deception and affairs as a means of finding freedom from his presence.

A couple with a rocky marriage argues over fetching a newspaper, which becomes a catalyst for their impending divorce. When they unexpectedly reunite over a decade later, the former couple witnesses how their lives disparately transformed thanks to the fateful newspaper.

A Jewish communist quit working at an editorial bureau where his co-workers are bothered by his leftist ideology because of his boss' praises of him.

When a teenage girl in 1940s New York City finally conjures up the urge to demand some money that a friend owes her, she’s treated to an afternoon of conversation unlike anything she’s ever heard before.

As an old woman revisits her family's quintessentially American history, she finds a way to respect and love her parents, despite the scandals and tragedies they endured.

Against the backdrop of an unspeakable tragedy, a woman contemplates leaving her cruel husband in a bar on the last day of their vacation in 1950s Mexico. Unfulfilled desire and rising dissatisfaction consume her as she considers what she really wants from her life.

A man looks back on his father-in-law's life after he passes away, thinking of the many jobs he held and his military service.