Marian Quinn

Alchemy, Webster says, is a magical process of transmuting ordinary materials into something of true merit (base metals into gold). And such is this story of a young, very intense, woman who 'sculpts' by placing in some kind of order into cigar boxes, little things, usually broken, that she finds here and there. So exciting is her work that she is able to go to a month long retreat where she is only asked to "do what you do without interruption." But there are interruptions, and not only at this retreat, but in other parts of her life as she tries to amalgamate who she is from what she discovers about herself.

A beautiful woman has spent a lifetime obsessing about a hit-and-run she caused years ago. She knows she struck something, but left the scene before determining what it was - and if it was alive. She's allowed this event has taken over her life, and now lives in near-isolation with an equally lonely man. When a stranger enters her life that may hold the key to her past, reality becomes stranger than nightmares, and memories cannot be trusted.

After his young son dies from the negligence at a hospital, Harry Fertig takes matters into his own hands and kills the doctor, nurse and clerk responsible. Slick lawyer Roy Bleakie, looking only to win a case and not caring of the matters involved, is asked by Fertig's boss to defend him. Shocked to hear that his client wants to plead guilty, the case causes Bleakie to question his own morals by defending an honorable man.

Johnnie is a foreman of a construction crew. On the outside he seems very "normal" and straight, but one evening we see him putting on makeup and a feather boa and going out for a night in the city.

Desmond Doyle is devastated when his wife abandons their family on the day after Christmas. His unemployment, and the fact that there is no woman in the house to care for the children—Evelyn, Dermot and Maurice—make it clear to the authorities this is an untenable situation. The Catholic Church and the Irish courts decide to put the Doyle children into Church-run orphanages.

The story of Valerie Solanas, a '60s radical who preached misandry in her "SCUM" manifesto. She wrote a screenplay for a film that she wanted Andy Warhol to produce, but he repeatedly ignored her. So she shot him.

A high-priced call girl, shocked by her mother's death, decides to get out of the business and have a baby.

Victor is a cook who works in a greasy roadside restaurant owned by his mother, Dolly. It's just the two of them, a waitress named Delores, and a heavy drinking regular, Leo. But things change when Callie, a beautiful college dropout, shows up as a new waitress and steals Victor's heart. But Victor is too shy to do anything about it, and too self-consciously overweight to dream of winning Callie away.

When schoolteacher Kieran Johnson discovers that his father was not a French sailor (as he had been led to believe) but rather an Irish farmer, he looks to his mother for answers. When she refuses to provide any, Kieran travels to Ireland.

A story of youthful misadventure set against the backdrop of a lawless border terrain during the last gasps of the Irish boom.

After spending time in New York City, Billy Hayes returns to his Ireland hometown. He wants to get back together with his ex-girlfriend and take her to America in hopes of opening up a gas station. But everything isn't going Billy's way — the townspeople aren't happy to see him, and his ex-girlfriend is engaged and pregnant. Then, Billy runs into his old friends who are planning a scam.

Was Arthur Rudolph, a central figure in the first Moon Landing, also involved in war crimes involving the death of 20,000 slave labourers in World War 2?

Broken Harvest is set in 1950's Ireland framed by modern-day New York. It deals with a bitter feud between two farmers who had taken opposite sides in the Irish Civil War many years before and who had also fought for the love of the same woman. When the feud is reawakened in the '50s it causes a major upheaval with tragic consequences for the lives of the two men, their families and the community. As the story unfolds it embraces many of the great, lingering issues affecting Ireland in this century - the War of Independence, the Civil War, emigration, the links with America, the clash between traditional, conservative values and those of a new technological age.