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.

In a small rural farm town, a middle-aged poet struggles with aging and finding meaning in his life.

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 man leaves his family in NYC to look for a job out West. During the trip, he helps an injured young boy, sleeps with a waitress, and considers leaving his family for good.

A town newcomer befriends a seasoned bird hunter and learns about his tragic past and the wild family that continues to haunt him long after they’ve left town.

When a northern writer arrives in a rural Tennessee town to better understand the culture for his novel, he is put through a harrowing night by the menfolk who, in the course of an elaborate joke, convince him he has inadvertently killed the son of his hosts.

A large factory is shut down in a small town in Illinois, and the town's residents face a sudden economic depression — until a prison is built where the factory had been, invigorating the economy but bringing along with it unintended consequences.

When a farmer proposes a year-long vacation to his wife and son, they each go their separate ways until his personal plans become an embarrassment to the whole family.

A group of men in a small American town make a deal with an ancient being in the 1960s so that the town would never change. Now, the last of the men is on his death bed, and the rest of the town struggles with what his death means for them.