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A lifestyle correspondent for a New York morning television program, Lucinda Trout is tired of reporting on thong underwear, so she heads to the Midwest. There she begins a series of dispatches called "The Quality of Life Report." The reports are intended to feed city slickers' appetites for anecdotes about a simpler life. But as Lucinda finds out, the heartland isn't quite the paradise it seems.

It was more than a century ago that Mark Twain left the notoriously violent Finn, Huckleberry Finn's father, dead, surrounded by such oddities as a wooden leg and women's undergarments. But just exactly how did Finn end up in that room? Clinch takes us on a journey through the mysterious life of an unusual man. Along the way, he introduces us to characters like the Judge--Finn's own frightening father--as well as Finn's sickly brother Will, the hermit Bliss, and former slave Mary, who becomes Finn's lover.

When Walter Burke's army buddy dies in a blood-soaked Vietnamese jungle, Walter finds himself writing a letter to the young man's parents. But as he struggles to put words on paper, all the trauma of his years growing up middle class and black in Birmingham, Alabama floods back into his mind.

Nellie, whose black skin and blonde hair have always made her feel like an outsider, feels more out of place than when she was younger. Her parents are working on a divorce. She's stuck in a car on a road trip with her dark-skinned dad and her white, sassy cousin Jess. Things couldn't be worse--then the Volvo catches fire. As Nellie struggles to come to terms with her parents' separation, she is finally able to define herself in her own terms, finding both friendship and love in places least expected.

At 17, Fay Jones leaves her family's squalid home with $3 in her bra and ragged sneakers on her feet. As she heads for Biloxi,people befriend her, but her impact on their lives is seductive and unpredictable. Beautiful and naive, Fay becomes the catalyst in a chain reaction of desire and violence.

October Brown, an African-American teacher at a private school in Kansas, becomes pregnant by the father of a student and returns home to Ohio, where she and her sister were raised by their aunts after their father killed their mother 20 years before. Confused and unhappy, October gives the baby to her sister and goes back to teaching. Then she regrets her decision.

Ally, Bree, and Jack meet at the one place the Great Eclipse can be seen in totality, each carrying the burden of different personal problems, which become dim when compared to the task they embark upon and the friendship they find.

When teenagers in a California coastal community challenge each other to "jump the Nail"--leap from dangerous cliffs into the ocean--group pressure and manipulative relationships quickly drive the game out of control.

Austin tells the uplifting story of 20-year-old Violet Hayes and her search for her elusive mother and for true love. In her quest, Violet learns much about love, faith, and life as she marches for women's rights, feeds slum dwellers, hobknobs with the highfalutin, and ponders marriage proposals.

Meet Forrest Gump, the lovable, herculean, and surprisingly savy hero of this remarkable comic odyssey. After accidentally becoming the star of Univerity of Alabama's football team, Forrest goes on to become a Vietnam War hero, a world-class Ping-Pong player, a villainous wrestler, and a business tycoon -- as he wonders with childlike wisdom at the insanity all around him.