An older mother frets over her third, most troublesome and combative daughter, who may be having an affair.

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.

A middle-aged man begins a sexual relationship with his younger brother's wife after his brother kills three people in a car crash and checks into a psychiatric ward.

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.

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 blissfully naïve young couple hopes to avoid the fate of the husband's unhappy parents, but as his jealous mother, children, and resentments come between them, the young couple falls into the same pitfalls.

The children in a family grow tired of hosting their middle-aged cousin, but his expulsion brings unexpected strife to the family.

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.

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.

Two siblings are thrilled at their father’s return to their home after a long week of work and, in their fervor for playtime with him, cause his well-being to take a turn for the worse.