A Black mother enlists rootworkers to dole out revenge on a White woman whose merciless actions during the Great Depression caused her children to starve.

When an impoverished man shows up to a wealthy woman's door in dire need of help, she gives him ten dollars and tries to send him on his way. The man insists that he return the next day to thank her husband for the money, but she isn't quite sure if things are as they seem.

Five days after moving to the quiet town of Manacle, Arizona, a married couple learns of the curse on the town: if you do anyone a favor, they will turn against you.

In an unlikely encounter, a homeless teenage boy recounts harsh events of his life to a writer. He nonchalantly tells of an employer whose assignments caused him to have permanent physical and mental damage.

On the Great Plains, an aging farmer and his wife struggle to sell their produce amid an increase in frozen food manufacturing. The farmer must figure out how to avoid the fate of his neighbors, who were pushed out of business and into welfare dependence.

A poor man stows away on a train. While riding, another man joins and claims to be carrying a large amount of money. Despite his jealously, the poor man decides to help this strange man freeload on the train.

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.

When his deceased son is accused of thievery, a grieving grocery store owner condemns the world for making him rethink the innocent memories he had of his son.

A homeless man in the Southern US is accused of a crime he didn't commit. As he goes through the conviction process, he learns about the ugly truths of the American justice system and its need to punish outcasts.

When the father of a college-aged girl, who works in a mail center and has taken to stealing her classmates' mail, comes to visit, he sexually assaults his daughter, as he has been doing since she was a young girl.