Adult

For decades, Amy Griffin ran. Through the dirt roads of Amarillo, Texas, where she grew up; to the campus of the University of Virginia, as a student athlete; on the streets of New York, where she built her adult life; through marriage, motherhood and a thriving career. To outsiders, it all looked, in many ways, perfect. But Amy was running from something --- a secret she was keeping not only from her family and friends, but unconsciously from herself. “You’re here, but you’re not here,” her daughter said to her one night. “Where are you, Mom?” So began Amy’s quest to solve a mystery trapped in the deep recesses of her own memory --- a journey that would take her into the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, to the limits of the judicial system, and, ultimately, home to the Texas panhandle, where her story began.

At the turn of the 21st century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

The film Oppenheimer has awakened interest in this vital period of American history. Now, for the first time in a generation, RED SCARE presents a narrative history of the anti-Communist witch hunt that gripped America in the decade following World War II. The cultural phenomenon, most often referred to as McCarthyism, was an outgrowth of the conflict between social conservatives and New Deal progressives, coupled with the terrifying onset of the Cold War. This defining moment in American history was marked by an unprecedented degree of political hysteria. Drawing upon newly declassified documents, journalist Clay Risen recounts how politicians like Joseph McCarthy, with the help of an extended network of other government officials and organizations, systematically ruined thousands of lives in their deluded pursuit of alleged Communist conspiracies.

Faruq Zaidi, a young journalist processing the recent death of his father, who was a devout Muslim, takes the opportunity to embed himself in a cult called “the nameless.” Based in the California redwoods and shepherded by an enigmatic Vietnam War veteran named Odo, the nameless adhere to the 18 Utterances, including teachings such as “all suffering is distortion” and “see only beauty.” Faruq, skeptical but committed to unraveling the mystery of the nameless, extends his stay over months, as he gets deeper into the cult’s inner workings and alluring teachings. But as he gets closer to Odo, Faruq himself begins to unravel, forced to come to terms with the memories he has been running from while trying to resist Odo’s spell.

Olivia Becente was never supposed to have the gift. The ability to commune with the dead was the specialty of her sister, Naiche. But when Naiche dies unexpectedly and under strange circumstances, somehow Olivia suddenly can’t stop seeing and hearing from spirits. A few years later, she’s the most in-demand paranormal investigator in Denver. She’s good at her job, but the loss of Naiche haunts her. That’s when she hears from the Brown Palace, a landmark Denver hotel. The owner can’t explain it, but every few years, a girl is found dead in room 904, no matter what room she checked into the night before. Olivia’s investigation forces her to confront a mysterious and possibly dangerous cult, a vindictive journalist, betrayal by her friends, and shocking revelations about her sister’s secret life.

NYPD Detective Declan Shaw gets a call: How fast can you get to the Beresford building on Central Park West? In the tower apartment, Shaw finds a woman waiting for him. She’s covered in blood. A body is lying dead on the floor of the luxurious living room. Every book in the apartment’s floor-to-ceiling shelves is by the same author: bestselling true-crime writer Denise Morrow. "This is you?" Shaw asks the woman. "You're a writer?" Only one person knows the ending to this story. Is it the victim or the killer?

“The afternoon of September first, dishwater-gray and rainy, a man named Dale Figgo picked up a hitchhiker on Gus Grissom Boulevard in Tangelo Shores, Florida. The hitchhiker, who reminded Figgo of Danny DeVito, asked for a lift to the interstate. Figgo said he’d take him there after finishing an errand.” Thus begins FEVER BEACH, with an errand that leads --- in pure Carl Hiaasen style --- into the depths of Florida at its most Floridian: a sun-soaked bastion of right-wing extremism, white power, greed and corruption.

Thirty years ago, Laura’s mother, Viola, went missing. She left behind her purse, her keys, and her mysterious paintings of a red house. Laura, an artist herself, held on to the paintings. On the back of each work, her mother scrawled in Italian, “I will not be here forever.” The family never understood what Viola meant. Decades later, Laura returns to Italy, where her parents met after World War II. Laura spent the earliest years of her childhood there before the family moved to New Jersey and settled into an American dream that eventually became a nightmare. Viola, who claimed to be an orphan, staunchly refused to speak of her life before marriage. In Italy, Laura finds herself on a strange scavenger hunt to solve the puzzle of her mother’s lost years.

Growing up in the Southeast D.C. projects with a drug dealer for a father, Curtis Wilson is a cello prodigy who rises to unimagined heights in the classical music world. But then his life suddenly disintegrates. His father, Zippy, turns state’s evidence, implicating his old bosses. Now the family must enter the witness protection program if they want to survive. This means that Curtis must give up the very thing he loves the most. When Zippy’s bosses prove too elusive for law enforcement, Curtis, Zippy, and Zippy’s girlfriend, Larissa, realize that their only chance of survival is to take on the criminals themselves. They must create new identities and draw on their unique talents, including Curtis’ musical ability, to go after the people who want them dead.

Here are the soldiers and doctors and veterans, wives and lovers and children, who have been affected in ways both subtle and profound by the cataclysms of our times. In the aftermath of World War II, a young Jewish private, stationed in Germany, seeks the truth about lost family members. In the 1960s, a father focuses on his daughter’s wedding even as the Cuban Missile Crisis approaches the brink of global disaster. On September 11th, a maid working for U.S. Embassy staff in London wonders if her birth on the day of the Kennedy assassination determined the course of her life. And at the height of the pandemic lockdown, a respiratory disease specialist comes out of retirement and is faced with a formative childhood memory.