An unnamed narrator muses about the layout and the mundane emptiness at a neighborhood intersection. A man later gets out of a streetcar at the intersection and enters one of the brick buildings.

As an old woman revisits her family's quintessentially American history, she finds a way to respect and love her parents, despite the scandals and tragedies they endured.

After having a disturbing nightmare concerning his family, an elderly veteran in 1910's Virginia buys a packet of fire grenades to ward off approaching harm.

In a small rural town in the 1930s, three friends — a farmer’s wife, a music teacher and adulteress, and a single huntswoman — drift away from one another as they grow older, choosing unexpected futures for themselves.

When the Great Depression hits a well-to-do family, an eighteen-year-old girl works at a ranch to put herself through college, enduring the difficulty of the work while also enjoying being away from the stifling environment of her home.

A man reflects on his time as a newspaper boy during World War I. Overwhelmed by the horror of the headlines, he must confront harsh truths about morality during wartime.

After fleeing Germany in the wake of World War II, two immigrants struggle to adjust to a new life of labor and hardship on an American farm.

Caught up in memories of the past, a woman remembers a fateful summer dinner party at the start of World War II that left her family more divided than ever.

A man watches an old woman visit an abandoned house in his neighborhood year after year, and he tries to piece her story together from town gossip.

Two men down on their luck form a surprising friendship and enact a get-rich-quick scheme.