On a rural Nebraska farm, a young woman, who married into a farmer's family, tries to help her sister-in-law, who is upset with the mundane of farm life and her husband.

As the era of American farming comes to an end, it proves more difficult than expected for one young man to convince an old woman that she should leave the land for more fruitful prospects.

When a northern writer arrives in a rural Tennessee town to better understand the culture for his novel, he is put through a harrowing night by the menfolk who, in the course of an elaborate joke, convince him he has inadvertently killed the son of his hosts.

A young woman travels out to rural Nebraska to be a schoolteacher and she becomes mesmerized by the beauty of the landscape. Her connection with the land piques the curiosity of a prudent domestic wife.

A Wyoming native unsuccessfully jumps between jobs over his lifetime to support his large family. Through bankruptcy and loss, he perseveres and continues to look forward to his next venture.

In a town so small it can hardly be called a town, a black woman serves a rich white family until a series of horrific events causes the single joy in her life to vanish.

On the Great Plains, an aging farmer and his wife struggle to sell their produce amid an increase in frozen food manufacturing. The farmer must figure out how to avoid the fate of his neighbors, who were pushed out of business and into welfare dependence.

A poor white sharecropper and his Cherokee wife must decide if they will allow their youngest son to leave their home with a wealthy lawyer and become a player for the town's football team.

After a teenage girl from a poor logging family is found dead at a college party hosted at the home of a prominent Michigan family, a detective on her case must negotiate the area’s local politics—at his own peril.

When a mother upends her life and moves to a newly formed settlement with her family in Montana, she is forced to rethink her values and comfort zone.