The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Kauffman, Rebecca. Chorus. Counterpoint, 2022.

The novel is divided into several short stories, and opens with "Proof," during which Jim Shaw, the patriarch of the family, learns about a tornado that hit a nearby community but chooses not to tell his wife or children about it. From there, "The Remembrance" follows Maeve Shaw, one of Jim's daughters, on the anniversary of her mother's death; she struggles to accept that her other siblings do not seem as wounded by the anniversary as she does until she finds her younger brother, Henry, hitting his head against his bed frame that night. In "Day Trip," an adult Henry spends a day at the beach with his daughter, Mimi, and becomes increasingly anxious about his wife's whereabouts, nearly calling the police before being reassured by a member of his hotel staff that Anne is just a few minutes late. "The Mouse" moves back to the childhood of the Shaws and details an unpleasant counter that Jack Shaw has with a neighbor, John Winthrop, who taunts Jack by telling him that he has been showing Maeve his collection of dirty photographs; Jack feels so betrayed by Maeve that he fails to tell his father about Winthrop's indiscretions.

"A Haunting" takes place in 1952 and follows Bette Shaw as she seeks diagnosis for a strange tingling in her legs with little help from her layabout husband, Ray; when Bette finally arrives at the address provided for her by a doctor, she discovers it is a psych ward, and drives away to safety. "The Show" details Bette's attempt (alongside her brother Henry) to put on a comedy routine for her dying mother when she was a child, an attempt that does not go well and embitters Bette toward her family and the farm. Around the same time, in "Eggshell," Henry develops a fascination with climbing things and nearly falls off of the neighbor's grain silo when he realizes that the poplar trees around his mother's grave are beginning to die. "Sour Milk," meanwhile, which takes place when Jack and Sam Shaw are both very young, details an incident during which Jack drinks a bottle of sour milk to impress his peers and Sam is scolded by his teacher for not stopping his younger brother.

"Escape" is narrated from Jim's perspective, and finds him caught in the rafters of the barn as he eavesdrops on his children and is left with a sense that they are growing up. "The Curtain," meanwhile, takes a darker look at the onset of adulthood, detailing the childhood marriage of Lane Shaw to Winthrop after Winthrop forcibly impregnates her. "One or Two Nights" takes place many years later, in 1950, and follows Jack and Maeve as Jack spends a night in Maeve's apartment because his wife, Camille, has kicked him out of the house for excessive drinking. "Soldiers" takes place following the deaths of Ray and Winthrop, and details Bette's grief as she forges a bond with her sister Lane, a fellow widow.

"Ocean" offers a brief glimpse at the lonely literary childhood that Lane leads since she is alienated from the rest of her family. "The Decent Thing," in turn, details an incident during which Lane comes across a dead dog on the side of the road and, after being confronted by the dog's owner, declines to tell the owner's daughter about the dog's death as the owner asks she do. "Visitations," which takes place in the early days of the Great Depression, follows Wendy Shaw as she attempts to make Christmas special for her family in spite of Marie's depressive tendencies and the lack of money; this does not go as planned, as the family is robbed that night by a passersby named Liam. "Just a Guess" jumps forward in time to the months following Bette's wedding and her departure from the farmhouse, detailing the increasingly solitary and irrelevant life that Wendy fears she is leading as she cares for Jim. "The Cannery," set around the same time, explores the adult life of Sam as he attempts to learn the ropes at his father-in-law's cannery in Maine and wrestles with the guilt of having destroyed his mother's suicide note after finding her body.

"Tito" is a brief chapter that details an event from Jim's childhood during which he invented an enormous web of lies to avoid admitting to his mother that he had been naming the animals on the farm. "The Bungalow" explores Marie's youth and tells the story of her move to the Shaw farm and marriage to Jim, which was intended as a punishment from her mother for Marie's melancholy disposition but in fact turned into a reprieve from the abuses of Marie's childhood. "The End" follows Jim's final days as he places calls to his children and thinks fondly of their time together. "Advent," finally, sees the Shaw siblings come together for Christmas in the wake of their father's death and resolve many of their struggles, including the disappearance of Lane's son to a commune in Tennessee, the knowledge of Lane's rape at Winthrop's hands, and Sam's guilt over the destroyed suicide note.