In a rural Mississippi town, a well-intentioned Black woman tries to help a clueless young white mother take care of her baby, but the mother's family gets in the way.

Two "straight" young men are hired for the summer to look after sheep on Brokeback Mountain; alone together, they fall into a sensual and secret romance that they never forget and can never quite leave behind. Over the next twenty years, although their careers and families threaten to separate them, they find ways to reunite.

After he spots a giant catfish in a river in the southern United States, a farmer dedicates ten years of his life to catching it, and leaves his wife to tend the farm.

As his older sister passes into adolescence, a boy grieves the loss of their blissful childhood friendship. He finds reprisal in her sudden frailty and fits of passion, culminating in a disastrous piano recital.

One Thanksgiving Day, a young boy in a big family in Nashville watches as his older siblings, aunt, uncle, and parents find their purpose in life and become strangers to him.

After his father complains that he spends too much time at the piano, a young boy in the 1940s American South plans to rob a grave in order to finance his music lessons.

On a business trip to Georgia, a man reconnects with his cousin and spends the night at the his plantation house, where he is reminded of the pleasures and pain of his childhood.