Brooklyn, 2001. It is the evening of sixteen-year-old Melody's coming of age ceremony in her grandparents' brownstone. Watched lovingly by her relatives and friends, making her entrance to the music of Prince, she wears a special custom-made dress - the very same dress that was sewn for a different wearer, Melody's mother, for a celebration that ultimately never took place.

Unfurling the history of Melody's parents and grandparents - from the 1921 Tulsa massacre to post 9/11 New York - Red at the Bone explores sexual desire, identity, class and the life-altering facts of parenthood, as it looks at the ways in which young people must so often make long-lasting decisions about their lives - even before they have begun to figure out who they are and what they want to be.