A quiet gardener and shopkeeper defies her town's cruel gossips to shelter a destitute young woman.

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.

A teenaged boy wants to steal from his poor family to buy a girl balloons, but when he gets home his mother falls ill and he must help his family and community pray for her.

In a small town, a resident watches as the people and place change. He recounts eight seemingly disparate stories, but the town connects them all.

A middle-aged, single, hairdresser spends the day spreading gossip from client to client. She ends her busy day with an ultimate act of meddling.

With a local man on trial for the murder of his family and a history of tragedy in the town, a group of neighborhood kids contemplate death.

On the 4th of July, a small Texas diner receives new customers from all over the nation. One family arrives to the small town in search for an old war buddy, Bill, who offered the husband a job, but the townspeople insist that Bill's work is not accepting any new workers.

A four-year-old black boy vaguely recalls a mixture of occurrences that puzzled him, including a sentenced hanging in his town of a man who allegedly murdered his wife.

A western town’s rule-flaunting, drunken personality is locked up for hiding his still in the church basement, while his son is finally released from the school that had for so long oppressed him.