Oldies but goodies

In June, 1983, in Dutchess County, New York, Sebastian Cole joins his mother, step-father, and sister for dinner. Hank, Sebastian's step-father, drops a bomb: he announces he's changing sexes. Sebastian's sister splits immediately for California, and his mother takes him back to England. Jump ahead eight months, Sebastian is back in New York, knocking on Hank's door. Hank (now Henrietta, although all the surgeries aren't complete) takes Sebastian in and is his rock over the next few months of high school. Sebastian's "adventures" are mostly self-destructive.

The Chumscrubber starts out with Troy, a normal teenager who supplies "feel good" pills to everyone in his high school (this way he spreads happiness all around). But when his friend Dean pays him a visit, Dean discovers Troy has hanged himself in his bedroom during one of his mother's pool parties. After the death, three local teens: Billy, Lee, and Crystal, want what's left of Troy's stash of pills and they know that Dean is the only one who knows where they are. But when Dean refuses to get the pills, the three teens kidnap Dean's little brother, until they realize they've kidnapped the wrong kid.

Two sisters, 11-year-old Amanda and 16-year-old Laurel, run away from their different foster parents and sleep in model homes and wherever else they can. But when Laurel becomes pregnant. they realize they can't handle this crisis on their own. With nowhere else to turn, they decide to kidnap Elaine, a clerk in a baby-supply store. But Elaine seems to need Manny and Lo just as much as they need her.

Enid and Rebecca after they finish the high school. Both have problems relating to people and they spend their time hanging around and bothering creeps. When they meet Seymour who is a social outsider who loves to collect old 78 records, Enid's life will change forever.

Seventh-grade is no fun. Especially for Dawn Weiner when everyone at school calls you 'Dog-Face' or 'Wiener-Dog.' Not to mention if your older brother is 'King of the Nerds' and your younger sister is a cutesy ballerina who gets you in trouble but is your parents' favorite. And that's just the beginning--her life seems to be falling apart when she faces rejection from the older guy in her brother's band that she has a crush on, her parents want to tear down her 'Special People's Club' clubhouse, and her sister is abducted....

Jennifer does not fit in. A total misfit, she's as wacky as a teenager can be. Goth-ed out with multiple piercings, tattoos, and dyed hair, she listens to strange music, watches vintage TV, eats primarily chocolate, and self injures. But now high school is over and she needs a job. Can she possibly have anything in common with the overweight middle-aged man in the haberdashery window? He gives her a job, not to mention a real friendship.

Seventeen year old Jason Slocumb, Jr. - Igby to most that know him - comes from east coast old money, the second son of self-absorbed and controlling Mimi Slocumb and medically-diagnosed schizophrenic Jason Slocum, Sr., the latter who has for several years been institutionalized in a Maryland psychiatric facility. While Igby's economics-studying Columbia-attending older brother Ollie Slocum has embraced and aspires to continue their wealthy life, Igby has rebelled against it, considering his brother a fascist (although he could soften that label to Republican). Because of Jason's situation, Mimi has largely left the role of male role model for Ollie and Igby to their godfather, D.H. Banes. Igby's rebellion has led to him being kicked out of one prep school after another, the latest, a military academy, from which Igby escapes before he can graduate. As such, Mimi and D.H. arrange for Igby to live in New York with Ollie for the summer while working for D.H. renovating some of his properties, before Mimi arranges for yet another strict school for the fall so that Igby can at least graduate. Igby is largely able to hide out for most of the summer with the help of Rachel, D.H.'s younger heroin addict mistress, and Sookie, a slightly older waitress with who he falls in love. An issue with Sookie and the aftermath of a joint mission with Ollie leads to Igby having a clearer picture of what his immediate future will look like.

In mid-1970s Savannah, two bright but rebellious boys, Francis Doyle and Tim Sullivan, fight boredom, hormones and harsh teachers as they struggle to find something meaningful beyond the walls of their parish school. Francis, an exceptional artist whose imaginative forays into a fictional universe of good and evil fill his notebooks with comic-book imagery, creates a netherworld of superhero alter egos for the two boys. When the ultra-strict Sister Assumpta seizes their artwork one day, the boys embark upon an obsessed trail of revenge that ultimately changes their lives.

Five young losers spend their days and nights wasting their lives away, hanging out in parking lots and occasionally mentioning that they might want to make something of themselves... someday. On this particular night, they are visited by an old high school friend who has escaped their suburban town to become a pop star.

New York based writer Gwen Cummings knows that she drinks a lot but doesn't believe it's a problem, and if she decides that it is an issue that she could stop drinking on her own. She and her live-in boyfriend Jasper fuel each other's hyperactivity with this excessive alcohol consumption, "a normal life" is not in either's vocabulary. Between Gwen and her older straight-laced sister Lily, Gwen more closely resembles their larger than life mother, who was also an alcoholic and who died because of that when they were children. Lily believes that Gwen's addictions makes her a difficult if not impossible person to love. While Gwen is in a drunken stupor at Lily's wedding, Gwen causes one issue after another, ruining the day for Lily. Gwen is forced to examine her drinking with the culmination of bad events she caused at the wedding, leading to her being court ordered to enter into rehab or jail for twenty-eight days, which is only marginally more tolerable an idea to her than the alternative, which is jail. For Gwen to make any progress, she has to acknowledge that she has a problem which requires the support during those twenty-eight days not only of the facility's staff, but also the other patients, each who is going through his/her own issue with respect to the demons of addiction. If she does eventually acknowledge the problem, she will also have to reconcile the events of her life with Lily, and come to the realization that a life with Jasper is not in her best interest if she has any chance of surviving outside of the facility after those twenty-eight days.

Iris can best be described as a wallflower. She begins her first day as a temp for the nondescript Global Credit Association by waiting in a chair for two hours. This sets the scene for her (mis)adventures with the other "corporate orphans", Margaret, Paula and Jane. Led by Margaret, they find subtle ways to lessen the ennui of corporate oppression. The tension escalates when the new permanent hire, Cleo, enters the picture.

Mary is a senior at American Eagle Christian High School in suburban Baltimore. She considers herself born again; her rebirth was at age three. Her best friends are two classmates that comprise the Christian Jewels band with her. Hilary Faye is the alpha Christian who outwardly is perfect, especially in her connection to God Veronica is ethnic Vietnamese who was adopted and thus saved by a black Christian couple. A third is Tia, who is generally an outsider in her geek status but who aspires to be in this Christian clique. Also within their social circle--solely from necessity--is Hilary Faye's older brother Roland, who has been in a wheelchair since age nine after falling out of a tree; out of family obligation Hilary Faye transports him to and from school and everywhere else, but the rest of the time the siblings scorn each other. One of Hilary Faye's God-driven missions for the year is to save new student Cassandra, a Jewish girl who was expelled from her last school and only attends this faith-based school as a marginally-better option than the alternative. Mary's world starts to fall apart just before the start of the school year when her boyfriend Dean tells her he thinks he's gay. Mary receives what she believes are messages from God, including one indirectly through Hilary Faye, that make her believe she can save Dean by having sex with him and if this does save Dean, God will restore her spiritual virginity. The outcome? Dean is outed anyway and sent away for conversion therapy; and Mary becomes pregnant, something she doesn't tell Dean or Lillian, her mother. Her pregnancy affects how she treats another new student, Patrick, the son of the school's principal, Pastor Skip. As Mary tries to figure out what to do, her Christian faith is tested by many other Christians justifying what may be considered sins in having a higher Godly purpose, which she is unaware includes a relationship between her mother and married Pastor Skip.

Coming of age in Plainsboro, New Jersey. High school student Hal Hefner stutters. On the evening his parents stop arguing and separate, 43 miles away at the state tournament, his school's legendary debater, Ben Wekselbaum, goes blank mid-sentence, Ben's teammate Ginny Ryerson doesn't get a first-place trophy, and the world changes. That fall, to Hal's amazement, Ginny recruits him for the debate team, mentors him, and will be his partner. He still has his stutter, but he works hard and he falls in love with Ginny. On the day of the first debate of the season, the world changes again. From then until the day of the state tournament, Hal has a lot to sort out. Is love rocket science?

Peggy (Molly Shannon) is single, childless, in her forties, a lonely executive assistant in a friendly office. Her dog Pencil is the love of her life, and when he dies after eating some sort of toxin, Peggy's life spins out of her control: a friendly neighbor invites her for dinner; a friendly staff member at her vet's calls with an abused dog he recommends she adopt - she does, and also finds herself attracted to this fellow. She becomes a vegan, supports animal-rights causes, and embroils her brother's young children in these concerns. Saving dogs and other animals become such a passion that her mental health and her job may be in danger. Are regaining control and finding love beyond her reach?

New Year's Eve, 1981, the Lower East Side. Monica's having a party, but as late as 9, no one's there. She stews (and drinks). Folks are on their way, all looking for love, sex, or both. En route, paths cross, gambits misfire: a performance artist, her boyfriend until today and his long-time pal Lucy, two Long Island high-school girls, two punk rockers, a bartender, a Scottish painter who's lousy in bed, a pretty face named Jack who runs when women say they love him, his cute but clumsy date Cindy, two trendy vamps, a loquacious cabby, the man-crazed Hillary, and Elvis Costello. Nearly everybody smokes, and nearly everybody scores. And all get who and what they deserve.

'Jackie-O' is anxiously awaiting the visit of her brother home for Thanksgiving, but isn't expecting him to bring a friend. She's even more shocked to learn that this friend is his fiancée. It soon becomes clear that 'Jackie-O's obsession is nothing compared to her obsession with her brother, as it also becomes clear she isn't the only member of the family with problems...

Actress Reese Holden has been offered a small fortune by a book editor if she can secure for publication the love letters that her father, a reclusive novelist, wrote to her mother, who has since passed away. Returning to Michigan, Reese finds that an ex-grad student and a would-be musician have moved in with her father, who cares more about his new friends than he does about his own health and well-being.

After yet another failed relationship, Mrs. Flax (Cher) ups her family to the east coast to start all over again. Reluctantly dragged along with her is her daughter Charlotte - going through a very confusing time of her life - who wants to become a nun, and instead falls in love with a quiet, mild-mannered church employee, to the mixed response of her mother. Set at around the time of the Kennedy Assassination.