Once, Jay was an artist. After graduating from art school in London, he was tipped for greatness, a promising career taking shape before him. That was not to happen. Now, undocumented in the United States, having survived COVID, he lives out of his car and barely makes a living as an essential worker, delivering groceries in a wealthy area of upstate New York. One day, as Jay attempts to make a delivery at a house surrounded by acres of woods, he is confronted by his destructive past: Alice, a former lover from his art school days, and the friend she left him for. Recognizing Jay’s dire circumstances, Alice invites him to stay on their property --- where an erratic gallery owner and his girlfriend are isolating as well --- setting in motion a reckoning that has been decades in the making.

After receiving a prestigious writing fellowship in Germany, the narrator of RED PILL arrives in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee and struggles to accomplish anything at all. Instead of working on the book he has proposed to write, he takes long walks and binge-watches “Blue Lives” --- a violent cop show that becomes weirdly compelling in its bleak, Darwinian view of life --- and soon begins to wonder if his writing has any value at all. When some friends drag him to a party where he meets Anton, the creator of “Blue Lives,” the narrator starts to believe that the two of them are involved in a cosmic battle, and that Anton is "red-pilling" his viewers --- turning them toward an ugly, alt-rightish worldview --- ultimately forcing the narrator to wonder if he is losing his mind.

Seth is a shy, awkward twentysomething. Carter is more glamorous, the heir to a great American fortune. But they share an obsession with music --- especially the blues. One day, Seth discovers that he's accidentally recorded an unknown blues singer in a park. Carter puts the file online, claiming it's a 1920s recording by a made-up musician named Charlie Shaw. But when a music collector tells them that their recording is genuine --- that there really was a singer named Charlie Shaw --- the two white boys, along with Carter's sister, find themselves in over their heads, delving deeper and deeper into America's dark, vengeful heart.

Jaz and Lisa Matharu are plunged into a surreal public hell after their son, Raj, vanishes during a family vacation in the California desert. Before Raj reappears inexplicably unharmed --- but not unchanged --- the fate of this young family will intersect with that of many others, echoing the stories of all those who have traveled before them.