David Legore

When offered a promotion at her tech company, Sarah Newton-Hough convinces her husband Neil and son Madison to leave their Texas house for Silicon Valley. While embracing the opportunity, they must say goodbye to the only home and life they’ve ever known. As the house goes on the market, they learn the broader impact of their decision, particularly on their good friends and neighbors, JD and Milly Pierce.

The Pierces work a ranch that has been in the family for generations, dating back to the Texas revolution--land and legacy that is threatened by suburban sprawl. Saddened by the looming departure of their surrogate family members, and anxious about plans for new development near their land, JD and Milly seek to influence the sale in a stunning twist that threatens friendships and the future of both families.

When Dr. Tom Martinson, professor of religion, learns of a devastating school shooting in a remote, war-torn village, he opens class with an impassioned and improvised plea for peace. This angers student Wayne Mooreland, who openly identifies as a veteran of Afghanistan. After a recording of the lecture goes viral, Martinson finds himself the target of hostile threats from strangers both home and abroad, forcing the involvement of university administration and campus police. Officer Rogelio Cortez, veteran of Iraq, is assigned to provide security for Martinson—an assignment complicated by his military kinship with Mooreland.

As Dr. Jackie Edwards, dean of humanities, navigates the crisis, she struggles with the rights of students versus those of faculty members—all while balancing the complex needs of the modern, corporate university. While scolding Martinson for his lack of discretion, she rues the lack of a trigger warning policy intended to warn students of traumatic subject matter. Martinson protests and the relationship between these friends becomes strained, along with long-standing principles of academic freedom and professorial authority in the classroom.

Mooreland reveals his desire to become a military chaplain, which leads to a battle with Martinson over theological differences and the future of his degree. As the clash intensifies, they find themselves in the center of a firestorm over matters of faith and freedom—highlighting the potentially volatile relationships among faculty students, administration and the public.

Elisha Lowenstein is a fierce investigative journalist for The Houston Chronicle, having burnished her credentials with an award-winning exposé on regional fracking. She is also Jewish. Both of these truths place her in extreme danger when kidnapped by Clay Gilchrist and Julie “Doolie” Fischer—a common-law couple consumed by anti-semitism, conspiracy theories, and the personal wounds suffered during their experiences with Hurricane Ike. As the motives for the kidnapping are revealed, violent rhetoric turns to brutal actions that threaten the lives of all. Set in the early aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, DOOLIE explores the ongoing storm of extremist hatred in America.

Two children of the Vietnam War, born on opposite sides of the world, meet by chance at an RV park in central Texas. Proximity, unexpected likenesses, and a joint appreciation for vintage trailers bring them together in a disturbing story that brings new meaning to the concept of “domestic” terrorism.

Bo Butler, a veteran of Operation Desert Storm, suffers from Gulf War Syndrome and attributes his illness to contamination from depleted uranium. Having lost his father in Vietnam, and a newborn son to what he swears was radiation poisoning, Bo is hell-bent on revenging the ghosts of wars he blames on “Texas Presidents”—launching a crusade of dangerous attacks throughout the state, in an attempt to heighten awareness of his plight.

Nu Ngyuen, a Vietnamese-American, emigrated to the United States with her mother eleven years after the fall of Saigon to reunite with a father she had never known. Now, over twenty-five years later, Ngyuen camps with her father in an annual tradition dating back to their reunification. Irrepressibly social, she works vigorously to befriend her new neighbor Bo, never guessing the depth of his pain, or the gravity of his secrets.

Somehow, from the radioactive landscape of these nuclear families, a fragile friendship grows. Ultimately, however, the fallout from decades of violence proves to be too much— accidentally leading to tragic results.