A Canadian graduate student and his wife are living in France and often socialize with their peers at concerts and dinner parties. They soon make friends with an established novelist, but as the student continues to meet people he begins to question who he can trust and who his real friends are.

In 1920, a girl who works with her stepfather for the town butcher recounts when a woman from a nearby Native American reservation came to work at the shop. While the woman never did anything herself, the girl believes she is the cause of a series of troubling events.

When her child refuses to take off his Halloween costume because he’s decided that he’s a Mongolian nomad, an ESL teacher in Portland finds herself stuck in an absurd conflict that further strains her suffering marriage.

When a mysterious new member joins a group of struggling authors, the friends discover that they may have a supernatural creature in their midst, who can grant a single author success above all the others—but at a cost.

A rambunctious teenager with an inquisitive mind causes much grief for all his New England family and neighbors when he visits them in the summer of 1914, on the eve of World War I.

A Jewish mother wants her daughter to marry well and have a better life, but her husband doesn't seem to care. After her other daughter passes away, she realizes she should not hesitate to make bigger sacrifices.

A father facing mental and physical debilitations has his sights set on capturing a drop of sunlight to bring joy to everyone in his small hometown. Despite his good deed, the town finds it necessary to deliberate: is this man an alcoholic, mentally ill, or a criminal?

A young woman from Dahomey is stolen during the Dutch colonization. She is separated from her brother and hopes to go on a mission to find him.

Deep in one of Washington's national parks, two middle-aged men are ice fishing on the lake just outside their cabin. When an unexpected visitor arrives, the men have to decide whether to save themselves or this stranger.

Upon returning to Paris after a decade-long hiatus wandering the French countryside and writing an epic, a poet encounters an enigmatic young woman who believes he is a god and wants to be his disciple,