A girl dies one late, rainy night a few feet from the back door of her home. The girl, Abeba, was born in Ethiopia. Her adoptive parents, Delvin and Betsy Harvey --- conservative, white fundamentalist Christians --- are charged with her murder. Royal, a Seattle criminal attorney in the last days of his long career, takes Betsy Harvey’s case. An octogenarian without a driver’s license, he leans on his son --- the novel’s narrator --- as he prepares for trial.

Ranging from youth to old age, the voices that inhabit PROBLEMS WITH PEOPLE offer tender, unexpected and always tightly focused accounts of our quest to understand each other, individually, and as part of a political and historical moment. These stories are shot through with tragedy, poignant reflections upon cultural and personal circumstances, and paradigmatic questions about our sense of reality and belonging.

In Seattle, 1962, Walter Cousins makes the biggest error of his life --- he sleeps with Diane, his children's au pair. Diane gets pregnant and leaves their baby on a doorstep, but not before turning the tables on Walter and setting in motion a tragedy of epic proportions.