The youngest child and only boy in a fishing family of seven children grows up on the Nova Scotia coast. There, he must choose whether to follow in the family tradition of fishing, as his mother wants, or to follow his passion for books that his father instilled in him.

A Canadian woman lets an American exile room at her house, but warns him that he can only stay for two days.

A retired, middle-aged man lives alone after leaving his wife and daughters in England and moving to Vancouver. Amid the growing certainty of death and the absence of any strong relationships, he realizes he must break out of the vacuum within which he lives.