Summary

Kendall, a frustrated poet and editor in his thirties, and Piasecki, an accountant and coworker at a small book publisher in Chicago, Great Experiment Books, agree to embezzle money from the publisher into a fake book storage facility, Midwestern Storage. Kendall is married to Stephanie, who works in an art gallery, and they have two kids, Max and Eleanor. Kendall’s boss and owner of the publishing company, Jimmy Boyko, does not provide Kendall with health insurance, and Kendall can barely support his family on the low wages. Kendall often thinks about money and his economic straits. The first time that Piasecki suggested embezzling money from their publisher, Kendall resisted, but after asking Jimmy Boyko for health insurance and being rejected, Kendall decided that embezzling was the most American thing to do.

Kendall is in the process of editing an abridged version of...