Every day at 3:55 a.m., members of Team Movement clock in for their shift at big-box store Town Square in a small upstate New York town. Under the eyes of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before the store opens and customers arrive. Their lives follow a familiar if grueling routine, but their real problem is that Town Square doesn’t schedule them for enough hours --- most of them are barely getting by, even while working second or third jobs. When store manager Big Will announces he is leaving, the members of Movement spot an opportunity. If they play their cards right, one of them just might land a management job, with all the stability and possibility for advancement that that implies.

Nate Piven, a rising star in Brooklyn’s literary scene, has his pick of both magazine assignments and women. In this 21st-century literary world, wit and conversation are not at all dead. Is romance? Nate thinks of himself as beyond superficial judgment, yet constantly struggles with his own status anxiety --- he is drawn to women, yet has a habit of letting them down.