In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe's wife, Violet, attacks the girl's corpse. This passionate, profound story of love and obsession brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of Black urban life

Relates the story of a New England family's struggle to survive the throes of tragedy.

Disillusioned Helen West, Prosecutor for the Crown, becomes involved in the private and legal life of a battered woman whose circumstances could be deemed excuse enough for even the most gruesome crime, forcing Helen to face her cynicism.

At the close of the Civil War, weary veteran Malcolm Hopeton returns to his home in western New York State to find his wife and hired man missing and his farm in disrepair. A double murder ensues, the repercussions of which ripple through a community with spiritual roots in the Second Great Awakening. Malcolm Hopeton has gone from the horrors of war to those far worse, and arrayed around him are a host of people struggling to make sense of his crime....