In "Love Day" a young Marine, about to invade Japan, remembers the role his father played in building one of the ships. "Shadrach" is about a child's recollection of what happened when a former slave came home to die in the place where he was born. In "A Tidewater Morning" a boy describes the hot summer day on which his mother died. The stories all take place in Virginia.
Tells the story of the short-lived, bloody rebellion of slaves in Southhampton, Virginia, in August, 1831, as seen through the eyes of the instigator, Nat Turner.
Three friends, Stingo, a twenty-two-year-old writer; Sophie, a survivor of the Nazi camps; and Nathan, her mercurial lover, share magical, heart-warming times until doom overtakes them as Sophie's and Nathan's darkest secrets are revealed.