Mary Murphy grows up in a small town in the midst of an economic downturn as the daughter of a reluctant young mother who was impregnated by her alcoholic boyfriend on prom night.

Nothing happens in Molly Fox's Birthday. The plot is entirely uneventful, charting a day in the life of the narrator, a celebrated playwright, who is staying in Dublin at the home of her best friend, the Molly Fox of the title.

When 11-year-old Kimberly Chang and her mother move to New York City from Hong Kong, they are prepared for hard work and a difficult adjustment to a new life. But they are not prepared for just how difficult it proves to be.

Anna is a successful New York City book editor visiting her parents at home in the Caribbean for a few weeks when she discovers that her mother, Beatrice, has breast cancer.

The characters and situations in The Gin Closet feel familiar; close cousins to the women who populate Lifetime movies, sad songs, and countless other novels.