When Mary DeWalt organizes a Thanksgiving family reunion, her greatest obstacle among her four children is the oldest, James, who has been estranged for more than 35 years, following an argument with his father about attending church. The conflict simmered through James’ senior year in high school and solidified during his freshman year in college. Now, with her husband suffering from worsening dementia, Mary wants to gather the family one last time before she moves the patriarch to a memory care facility.

In a telephone call with James, she implies that it is “time” for him to return home. He grudgingly agrees to attend Thanksgiving dinner, although he had planned to spend the holiday with his girlfriend, who was anxious to introduce him to her friends, signaling an intensification of their relationship. She surprises him with her reaction, assuring him that it is more important to join his family for the holiday.

None of the DeWalts is prepared for the shocking revelations loosened by their father’s dementia: matter-of-fact confessions of affairs with multiple women and participation in the most infamous incident of the Vietnam war. For James, it solidifies his hatred of the man’s hypocrisy, of preaching one way of life while living the opposite. He steeled himself for a confrontation with his father but finds the man disoriented and unsettled, leading to arguments with his siblings, debates about the extent of what their mother knew when she coaxed them all home.

Household God is the story of an imperfect family and how each member addresses their common history, their relationships to one another, and how they will interact with one another in the future in the absence of their patriarch.