This Depression-era novel tells of young Acel Stecker, an unemployed musician from Oklahoma, who follows a restless path across America, willing to do anything to earn a living. In a lean, fast-paced style that caused him to be compared to Ernest Hemingway, Edward Anderson reveals an astonishing panorama of rattling freight trains, breadlines, hobo jungles, Hoover hotels, and bloody political demonstrations. Rootless, dispirited, and responsible to no one, Anderson's hungry men—like today's homeless—symbolized the failure of all that the dominant culture held dear.