In an East Ohio town, a middle-aged man checks into a hotel and explores the various characters, events and surroundings that define small town life.

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.

An amateur innkeeper struggles to demonstrate her knowledge of urban sophistication to her important guests and fails to grasp the benefits of authenticity to one’s heritage, leading to her mother being better-received by the guests.

When the decision to build a new integrated school falls into the hands of an elderly woman, a small Tennessee town grows desperate to escape the control of her family, which has historically worked to prohibit progress and change.

A man leaves his family in NYC to look for a job out West. During the trip, he helps an injured young boy, sleeps with a waitress, and considers leaving his family for good.

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 white woman who has recently moved to a rural Southern area with her family experiences a hysterical fear of the neighboring Mexican children.

A man recounts his life experience in New York, covering the various people near and dear to him, as well as the growth of the city itself.

Lynnie is a young, working-class girl who works at the Stone House in town and wastes her days making stories about the lives of the people around her, which she tells to her friend, Isobel. But when rumors start to circulate, Isobel mysteriously moves away, and Lynnie is left wondering why.

A teenage boy follows in the footsteps of his favorite teacher and leaves his small, rural community to attend a faraway college. However, a chance encounter with an old man makes him remember the value of nostalgia and one's birthplace.