California has seceded from America, and Molly and her daughter Phoebe run a bookstore that straddles the troubled border of the two countries. When outright war breaks out, Molly and Phoebe must protect their customers - American and Californian alike - but the customers are not all willing to get along.

In California, a young woman reflects on her relationship to her father while working on a novel. Through reading her father’s novel, she understands their relationship through his eyes.

A man, uprooting from his life in San Fransisco, takes on a rider on his long drive towards Denver, but finds they don't get along.

After a man from New York meets a young woman from a Mexican family on a bus to L.A., the two travel across mid-20th century Southern California searching for work, food, and shelter while falling in love. As the travelers struggle to survive on their few remaining dollars, the man wonders how long this adventure can last.

A high school dropout tries to make his dreams of being a rockstar come true in California. There, a mysterious hotel's beautiful guests seem to offer him the trinity of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but he quickly finds himself in an endless cycle of exploitation that's difficult to escape.

While on the run from her crack-cooking boyfriend, a woman feels at odds with her place in life—literally and figuratively.

After a troubled teenager living with his grandparents in southern California gets busted for drugs, he spends the summer with his mother and his new stepfather, where he slowly reforms his behavior.

A woman reflects on her time in the Bay Area—and the two women she knew from there.

An aimless, twenty-two-year-old Californian man questions everything—from his job to his ability to take care of a potted plant—as a heat wave sweeps his town. Just when he's about to spiral, a life-changing act of heroism gives him unexpected clarity.

In 1989, two friends from high school, now in their late-twenties, reunite in Santa Cruz and search for a rare mushroom as earthquakes begin to shake the Northern California landscape.