Fourteen-year old Frank Hollahan moves to Florida in 1943, at the height of World War II, to join his father, a Navy seaman. When Frank and his mother arrive at the busy naval port of Jacksonville, a surprising new life awaits them. In his new school, Frank's tendency toward exaggeration quickly builds him a reputation as a teller of tales. When he informs everyone that he saw an enemy spy land on the local beach, no one believes him, but Frank sets out to prove the spy's existence. The spy who came in from the sea ends up teaching Frank and the people of Jacksonville valuable lessons about friendship, perseverance, and the power of the truth.

Real Pictures is the result of many decades of photographs recording the day- to- day workings of a large family. As Chris Wiley of the New Yorker says “there is a tenderness and a sensitivity in these pictures of family that cannot be faked. Nolan is not embedded with her subjects, she is entwined. As such, the pictures not only show that she has an eye, but also a heart.”