A four-year-old Southern boy can read novels but has never spoken a word in his life. When he goes to his family's Fourth of July picnic, he must decide whether it is the appropriate moment to speak—or if there ever will be one.

A minorly successful writer allows his insecurities to drive him to dramatic actions.

When a mysterious new member joins a group of struggling authors, the friends discover that they may have a supernatural creature in their midst, who can grant a single author success above all the others—but at a cost.

A woman, living with her husband, is overcome with a strange, inexplicable ailment to her body.

A mother, her two children, and their stepfather come over to a friend’s for a dinner on Labor Day.

The ex-wife of a famous male writer considers a story he wrote about a neighbor they once had.

A maid, silently and in thought alone, contemplates her own position in a house full of opulent, decadent lives.

At the root of her complicated family formed by her father and stepmother, a girl faces years of abuse through what they consider to be a “royal beating.”