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.

After subconsciously imagining getting a divorce from his wife, a man examines his marriage and tries to convince himself that he still loves his family enough to stay with them.

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.

An investigator stays in a family home in order to become acquainted with the family and all their intricacies while he investigates the case of family's adult son, who has threatens to kill the president of the United States to spare the lives of those involved in Vietnam.

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.

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 one woman's husband has an affair with the neighbor, the two women erect a bamboo fence so they never have to look at each other. Once the husband leaves, the married woman's son grows sicker as he longs for the company of his half-sister next door.

During WWII, years after his parent's divorce, a college student and his brother visit their father and his new wife. However, the visit leaves him disappointed at what his father's life has become.

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.