Essie, a biographer, finds out she has more in common with her subject Matthew Corley, a sleeper agent, when she recreates him as a simulated figure that can be accessed with the purchase of her book.

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.

An English professor meets his long-time writing idol, who turns out to be a surly and irritable man — nothing like the majestic intellectual the professor had envisioned.

A man imprisoned for murdering his brother drifts between his visiting wife, his memories of life outside, and his friends in prison as he struggles to find meaning in his captivity -- in everyone's captivity.

When a working-class family moves into a middle-class black neighborhood, class prejudices and competition for a young girl’s attention brings the tension between families to an explosive head.

In this metafiction, the many lives of an unnamed man are scrutinized as he passes through millennia.

A prisoner wrongly accused of bank robbing escapes and is given the power of Ogun to help fight against the enslavement of African Americans.

An insufferable white man offers advice to a well-read, unemployed Black man holding a sandwich-board sign on a street corner on race relations, physical appearance, and how to improve his handwriting and thereby advance himself in society.

An elderly widower cares for his disabled brother while his sister-in-law visits the hospital. Believing his brother’s condition is a burden, the man tries to confront the situation and learns surprising truths about his family.

A bright teenager is forced to spend his summer at work back home in an Australian coastal town after his mother loses her job. When he finds a mysterious cache of objects that seagulls have stolen from people's futures, things start to take a turn for the better.