Alice is a reclusive writer, resigned to a solitary life on the seaside cliffs of Southern England while World War II rages across the channel. When she opens her front door one day to find she's to adopt a young London evacuee name Frank, she's resistant. It's not long, however, before the two realize they have more in common in their pasts than Alice had assumed.

The birdcage: The story of a middle-aged gay couple's comic encounter with a self-righteously straight and conservative family. Armand and Albert reluctantly accept young Val's intention to marry the daughter of a conservative Senator, but when the fiancee's family comes to visit, the whole household is turned upside down. The world to come: Somewhere along the mid-nineteenth century American East Coast frontier, two neighboring couples battle hardship...