An Italian man recounts how his father came into money upon arriving in the United States but spent and then lost it all when his factory caught fire. Despite his Papa’s veritable financial ignorance and dangerous pride, the son asserts none of it was ever his father's fault.

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.

A poor, ever-hopeful couple that imagines itself on the brink of a windfall suffers setback after setback, until the husband has a revelation about what in life holds real value.

When a young college student's father gives him money for tuition, the student spends it away and lies to his mother for money. His father catches him, but the student remains unsure if his mother knows the truth.

To earn enough money for college, a high school graduate takes a grueling factory job. He expects his only takeaway from the work to be a paycheck, but a mysterious coworker teaches him about the world and his place in it.

A group of working class people run a dangerous path toward a promised Elysium, and those who survive are rewarded with nothing they can appreciate or comprehend.

After being laid off from his job, a man struggles to find meaning in a utopian world where all of his basic needs are already met for him.

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 woman tries to convince her husband to quit his exhausting job as a traveling salesman. She reflects on the impossibility of having everything that she wants.

A young boy tries to help his parents make money by selling ice cream at his mother's work at a Snow White Laundry. An accident with one of the machines causes chaos and the narrator is forced to leave.