Description

James Vincent is born in 1942 to a working-class white couple whose marriage was already on the rocks. James struggles to move beyond a difficult childhood and escapes the violence at home to attend law school in Michigan, where he begins, ultimately, to envision his future as prosperous and bright.

Meanwhile, on a rural road in Georgia, Agnes Green, a black woman on her first date with a handsome suitor, is pulled over by the police, and the terrible moments that follow make her question whether she will have a future at all. As the years unspool ahead of them, unexpected turns of fate will connect these two lives and their families: two Americans who each come up against the forces of race, class, and gender that change—and end—ordinary lives.