| A young woman who has reinvented herself as a New York City socialite must return home to Alabama to obtain a divorce from her husband after seven years of separation. |
| Two F.B.I. Agents with wildly different styles arrive in Mississippi to investigate the disappearance of some civil rights activists. |
| The presidencies of Kennedy and Johnson, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal and other historical events unfold from the perspective of an Alabama man with an IQ of 75, whose only desire is to be reunited with his childhood sweetheart. |
| A housewife who is unhappy with her life befriends an old lady in a nursing home and is enthralled by the tales she tells of people she used to know. |