Help Wanted: A Novel

In the darkest, ungodliest hours of the morning, in the unseen warehouse of a big box store called Town Square, a group of workers gathers day after day to unload delivery trucks, sort the merchandise into departments, and empty the boxes onto store shelves. There are so many indignities in their workplace, and the worst is the manager of logistics, Meredith, who has created a culture of fear, pettiness, and disrespect among the team. When a store manager position opens up, Meredith is vocal about her ambition to be crowned… and the team decides that the best thing they can do to improve their work life is to ensure Meredith gets the promotion. Of course, this means one of them will then be chosen to take Meredith’s place. But which one?

The team members conspire and scheme. Some feel guilty, some don’t. Their back stories are revealed as this small drama plays out: Ruby is illiterate; Travis is an ex-con; Big Will can’t wait to move to Connecticut. The stories never really surprise, which is probably the point of a book that’s intended as social commentary: these characters are a kind of big-box archetype; you’ll find them everywhere, facing the same injustices of retail and capitalism. After some three hundred pages, readers may be left thinking, “Yes, and?…”