The book follows Henry an ex-convict freshly released from a 5-year jail sentence, and his eight-year-old son Junior. He served time in prison for possession of homemade opioids in an attempt to capitalize on his father’s life insurance. Six months earlier on New Year’s Eve, they were evicted from their trailer and since have been living in their Ford F250 pickup truck. As a single father—since Junior’s mother is absent and a drug addict—he tries to give his son a good eighth birthday experience though he is short of finances.
It opens in a McDonald’s bathroom with only $89.34 in his pocket; he purchases a birthday meal for Junior and later a hotel room for the night. At the discount motel, Junior is watching television while Henry prepares for a crucial interview in the bathroom. Shortly after, Junior suffers a fever from their earlier meal and the father has an altercation with a guest at the motel’s parking lot.
The story alternates between two narratives with one delving into Henry’s past and childhood with a focus on his father. The father came into the United States from the Philippines for his graduate education and met Henry’s mother at the school. Thereafter she becomes pregnant and Pa has to take on a substitute teacher job as he waits for his license. However, he has a violent encounter with a student and has to become a blue-collar worker in construction. The wife develops cancer, pushing the family into debt in pursuit of a cure but she dies shortly after. Consequently, Henry tries to commit suicide and while in the hospital meets a bulimic girl Michelle, Junior’s mother.
Back in the present, Henry tries to secure medication for his ailing son by walking into Walmart. Now almost cashless with only 38 cents in his pocket he notes the irony of the ‘low prices’ declarations at the store yet he cannot afford anything.
