Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss so she can pay her father’s debt and prevent him from going to prison for embezzlement.

An urgent phone call pulls a Yale Law student back to his Ohio hometown, where he reflects on three generations of family history and his own future.

Cultural critic David Kepesh finds his life — which he indicates is a state of “emancipated manhood” — thrown into tragic disarray by Consuela Castillo, a well-mannered student who awakens a sense of sexual possessiveness in her teacher.

In the days leading up to his execution, Texas death row prisoner John Henry Ramirez seeks redemption from his victim’s son; an elegy about the death penalty where a prisoner seeks forgiveness.