Charles Blakey is a young black man whose life is slowly crumbling. He's fallen behind on the mortgage payments for the beautiful home that's belonged to his family for generations. Then a stranger offers him $50,000 in cash to rent out his basement for the summer. The stranger has a very particular, and bizarre set of requirements, and Charles tries to satisfy him. He sees an opportunity to understand secrets of the white world, and his summer with...

At twelve years old, Cornelius, the son of an Italian-American woman and an older black man from Mississippi named Herman, secretly takes over his father's job at a silent film theater in New York's East Village. Five years later, as Herman lives out his last days, he shares his wisdom with his son, explaining that the person who controls the narrative of history controls their own fate. After his father dies and his mother disappears, Cornelius sets...