Broken to the Plow

An ordinary dinner party becomes a financial ordeal for Fred Starratt, an office worker whose salary keeps running short. His wife Helen expects him to bring home refreshments, but asking the company cashier for another advance exposes him to public scolding. A small loan from his colleague Brauer supplies the immediate need while leaving Fred uneasy. Charles Caldwell Dobie builds the opening around the cost of respectable appearances, wounded pride and the uncomfortable dependence created by an empty purse.

The novel also takes Fred into a detention hospital and then to Fairview, where locked rooms, official routines and the treatment of patients give his troubles a harsher setting. Ginger offers him a moment of comfort before his transfer. Readers interested in American social fiction will find closely observed office tensions, household spending and institutional life, all filtered through a man struggling to preserve his dignity.