Ken Harrison is an artist that lives to make sculptures. One day he is involved in a car accident, and is paralyzed from his neck down. All he can do is talk and move his head, and he wants to die. Whilst he is in hospital he makes friends with some of the staff, and they support him when he goes to trial to be allowed to die.

Corrine Burns retreats far into plans for her band, The Fabulous Stains, after her mother's death.

Jack McKee is a doctor with it all: he's successful, he's rich, and he has no problems.... until he is diagnosed with throat cancer. Now that he has seen medicine, hospitals, and doctors from a patient's perspective, he realises that there is more to being a doctor than surgery and prescriptions.

Hatch Harrison, his wife, Lindsey, and their daughter, Regina, are enjoying a pleasant drive when a car crash leaves wife and daughter unharmed but kills Hatch. However, an ingenious doctor, Jonas Nyebern, manages to revive Hatch after two lifeless hours. But Hatch does not come back unchanged. He begins to suffer horrible visions of murder -- only to find out the visions are the sights of a serial killer.

Yonkers Joe tells the story of a dice hustler whose determination to make one last grab for a big score in Vegas is complicated by the reappearance of his estranged, mentally challenged son into his life.

An ethical Baltimore defense lawyer disgusted with rampant legal corruption is forced to defend a judge he despises in a rape trial under the threat of being disbarred.

As political cartoonist Duffy and his bride Meg fail to conceive, he and sorority girl Daphne succeed.

In the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, two young sisters whose mother has abandoned them wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.

Joe Slovak is a brilliant first-year med student whose casual, nonconforming approach to life gets tested when he enrolls in Gross Anatomy, the toughest course in med school.

In 1941 America, Kay and her husband are happy enough until he enlists after Pearl Harbor. Against his wishes, she takes a job at the local aircraft plant where she meets Hazel, the singer from across the way. The two soon become firm friends and with the other girls become increasingly expert workers. As the war drags on, Kay finally dates her trumpet-playing foreman and life gets more complicated.