In 2017, a young boy in suburban Maryland is stuck watching his grandfather, an alcoholic former advertising executive who still sees the ghost of the son he killed.

After a dangerous encounter with a predatory artist in the 1980s, a former artist-turned-housewife tries to imbue her oblivious teenage daughter with that same fear of men that leaves her cold decades later.

When a young man signs up to fight in an intergalactic war in exchange for his citizenship, he finds himself inexorably drawn to the killing technology they’ve given him to murder the enemy.

In an unspecified country destroyed by war, a former chef-turned-political prisoner escapes his chains and steals the identity of a physics professor.

When a lesbian Cuban woman moves to the United States, she finds her hopes of romantic relationships, familial reconciliation, and prosperity threatened by an onslaught of mysterious medical concerns.

A female professor at a contemporary university remembers an old conversation with a former teacher of hers, which prompts her to reconsider her job, solitude, and love of reading.