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 middle-aged man and his wife struggle to keep up with their teenage daughter who they just adopted six months ago, especially when she takes interest in a boy her age.

A high school boy makes a habit of stealing cars, picking up girls, and skipping school. When he begins to worry that he is getting into too much trouble, the boy must decide whether to seek help or continue his criminal lifestyle.

Though most of a prep school's students are away for the long weekend, a few boys stay behind at the dorms and are invited to dinner with a wealthy boy and his stepmother. At the dinner, the stepmother's attitude and appearance are just as alluring as the food, but the wealthy student acts strange and detached the whole evening.

A grown man remembers the summer of 1984 when a girl he had a crush on took him on a tour of her haunted house.

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 modern-day Texas, a teenage boy navigates a world in which teens can take out virtual loans on a whim, big corporations sponsor everything from housing to church services, and consumerism runs rampant. As high school graduation approaches, he grows apart from his girlfriend and family — and becomes increasingly attached to an unsponsored, unbranded, humble little church.

Two men putting on a production for their New York theater company seek out a legendary, elderly actor, but upon finding him, they meet a man as dilapidated as the theater he once worked for.

A somewhat estranged family grapples with the impending death of their mother.

Having sacrificed his dream job to financially support his marriage, a man realizes there is sexual tension between his wife and his friend. Ultimately, he makes tough decisions about both his friendship and his marriage.