Adult

Beginning in 1915 with D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation --- which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster --- Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes. He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen. He considers the films themselves, including Imitation of Life, Gone with the Wind and Do The Right Thing. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Sidney Poitier, Alex Haley, Billy Dee Willliams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay and Jordan Peele, among many others.

On an otherwise uneventful afternoon when Liz Scheier was 18, her mother sauntered into the room and dropped two bombshells. First, that she had been married for most of the previous two decades to a man Liz had never heard of. And second, that the man she had claimed was Liz’s dead father was entirely fictional. She’d made him up --- his name, the stories, everything. Now, decades later, armed with clues to her father’s identity --- and as her mother’s worsening dementia reveals truths she never intended to share --- Liz attempts to uncover the real answers to the mysteries underpinning her childhood. Trying to construct a “normal” life out of decidedly abnormal roots, she navigates her own circuitous path to adulthood: a bizarre breakup, an unexpected romance, and the birth of her son and daughter.

At dusk on a November evening, a woman slips through her garden gate and turns up the hill. Kate is in the middle of a two-week mandatory quarantine period, a true lockdown, but she can’t take it anymore --- the closeness of the air in her small house, the confinement. And anyway, the moor will be deserted at this time. Nobody need ever know she’s stepped out. Kate planned only a quick walk --- a stretch of the legs, a breath of fresh air --- on paths she knows too well. But somehow she falls. Injured and unable to move, she sees that her short, furtive stroll will become a mountain rescue operation, maybe even a missing person case.

Rob has spent her life running from Sundial, the family’s ranch deep in the Mojave Desert, and her childhood memories. But she’s worried about her daughter, Callie, who collects animal bones and whispers to imaginary friends. It reminds her of a darkness that runs in her family, and Rob knows it’s time to return. Callie is terrified of her mother. Rob digs holes in the backyard late at night and tells disturbing stories about growing up on the ranch. Soon Callie begins to fear that only one of them will leave Sundial alive.

Now that she’s no longer a private detective, Molly Murphy Sullivan is looking forward to a time of settled tranquility with friends and family. Back in New York, where her own story began, Molly decides to accompany some friends to Ellis Island to help distribute clothing to those in need. This journey quickly stirs up memories for Molly. That evening, her policeman husband, Daniel, comes home with a tale to tell: there was a murder on Ellis Island that day, and the main suspect is the spitting image of Molly. The circumstances are eerily similar to when Molly herself arrived on Ellis Island, and she can’t help but feel a sense of fate. Molly was meant to be there that day so that she can clear this woman’s name.

On New Year’s Eve 1999, four teenagers working late at a Blockbuster Video in New Jersey are attacked. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again. Fifteen years later, more teenage employees are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive. In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre, who’s forced to relive the horrors of her tragedy; the brother of the fugitive accused, who’s convinced the police have the wrong suspect; and FBI agent Sarah Keller, who must delve into the secrets of both nights to uncover the truth about murders on the night shift.

Catherine Williams earns her living shucking oysters in a filthy, mosquito-infested shed, like all Geechee women in Pin Point, Georgia, in 1904. When the owner of the oyster cannery makes an unwanted sexual advance toward Catherine’s daughter Licia, Catherine is forced to hide Licia with her son Willie on Skidaway Island, the epicenter of fine-liquor smuggling and manufacture of moonshine. She struggles to keep her job and home, both of which depend on pleasing her boss. The mayor entices Licia into sex and rum-running, building her a secret house on Burnt Pot Island, where even voodoo and Christian prayer aren’t enough to keep her safe. Federal agents close in for a raid, forcing Catherine to choose between abandoning everything she has worked for and saving her children.

Jeanie Masterson has a gift: she can hear the recently dead and give voice to their final wishes and revelations. Inherited from her father, this gift has enabled the family undertakers to flourish in their small Irish town. Yet she has always been uneasy about censoring some of the dead's last messages to the living. She also is unsure about the choice she made when she left school 17 years ago: to stay or leave for a new life in London with her charismatic teenage sweetheart. So when Jeanie's parents unexpectedly announce their plan to retire, she is jolted out of her limbo.

Claudia is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls --- and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency. A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client vanishes, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate --- and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit.

Jess needs a fresh start. She’s broke and alone, and she’s just left her job under less than ideal circumstances. Her half-brother, Ben, didn’t sound thrilled when she asked if she could crash with him for a bit, but he didn’t say no, and surely everything will look better from Paris. Only when she shows up --- to find a very nice apartment, could Ben really have afforded this? --- he’s not there. The longer Ben stays missing, the more Jess starts to dig into her brother’s situation, and the more questions she has. Ben’s neighbors are an eclectic bunch, and not particularly friendly. Jess may have come to Paris to escape her past, but it’s starting to look like it’s Ben’s future that’s in question.