Kirsten Fitzgerald

A police shootout leaves four thieves dead during an explosive armed robbery attempt in Chicago. Their widows have nothing in common except a debt left behind by their spouses' criminal activities. Hoping to forge a future on their own terms, they join forces to pull off a heist.

When the last factory in a small Rust Belt town closes its doors, an unlikely hero emerges in dutiful, quiet Allery Parkes. A career employee of the factory, the aging Allery can't reconcile how to live a life simply sitting at home doing nothing. Against the advice and pleas of his loving wife Iola, he forms an unlikely friendship with his charismatic neighbor Walter Brewer in order to revive the defunct factory.

Rose Howard, a neurodivergent 12-year-old girl raised by her volatile single father, is forced to abandon her daily routines when a superstorm devastates their town and her beloved dog, Rain, goes missing. With the support of her uncle, Rose embarks on a determined search for Rain — a journey that challenges her resilience and compels her to make an impossible choice between her own needs and doing what is right.

If there’s one thing Americans can agree on, it’s that 2020 was not the best way to begin a new decade. With guts and humor, punctuated with story and song, Ike Holter asks who we are in a world on the brink of explosion in this rallying cry for our times.