On a visit to his old family farm in the Great Plains, a man recalls his tumultuous relationship with his now-deceased brother. In the process, he must reckon with the continued influence of familial trauma and confront his own ambiguous role in his brother's death.

A series of vignettes about various sons along a family tree.

A son tells a series of stories, most of them about his father and stepfather. As the son describes a robbery that took place at his house in high school and his experiences with his father, a former Jehovah's Witness and current alcoholic, he begins to recall details from his childhood.

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.

A woman narrates the experience of sending her young daughter off every weekend to stay with her ex-husband and his boyfriend- until things change.

After struggling to appeal to their state governor, a dysfunctional family anxiously awaits the public execution of a relative. As they wait at home new of the execution, tensions and strife erupt in a dispute over the relative's innocence.

A woman returns home to her family having just slept with another man. At dinner, her son gets into an argument with his father about their privilege. As the narrative moves back to the time they spent abroad in Nigeria, Burma and Ecuador, fractures in the family life are revealed.

In an attempt to impress his emotionally distant father, a boy ridicules his mother, who has loved him unconditionally even in his father's absence. Wracked with guilt, he yearns for her forgiveness - only to find that she does not hold it against him.

Following the death of her mother, a daughter recalls her mother gossiping about a small family in the Ottowa valley where a man shamelessly robs two sisters of their inheritance through marriage.

When a family reunion brings together siblings, they realize they are now more like strangers. At the end of the day, a shocking incident tests their bonds.