"Thomas Gradgrind is the guiding luminary of the Coketown school, stern proponent of the Philosophy of Fact, whose ill-conceived idealism blinds him to the essential humanity of those around, with calamitous results. His daughter Louisa becomes trapped in a loveless marriage and falls prey to an idle seducer, and her brother Tom is ruined thanks to their father's pet theories. Meanwhile Sleary's circus offers a vision of escape and entertainment,...

A harsh reality of extreme poverty, injustice and ignorance that identify a Mexico in decline during the decade of the 70s. Through various sarcastic situations that the characters perform, they criticize society, but mainly the government. Not everything is misfortune, because this helps to overcome what society suffers from: the Mexican always gets ahead.

Four separate stories are interwoven: the fall of Babylon, the death of Christ, the massacre of the Huguenots and a contemporary drama, all crosscut and building with enormous energy to a thrilling chase and finale.

Four separate, interwoven stories, unified by the common theme of man's inhumanity to fellow man. The Babylonian story deals with the fall of Babylon in 538 B.C. The Judean story treats the life of Christ. The French story centers on the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572. The modern story is set in an American mill town and the slum area of an American city.

Told in two voices, sisters April, age sixteen, and Jenn, eighteen, have twenty-four hours to fulfill a childhood pact and deal with a secret that threatens to tear them apart.