Peter Plate writes about what the media calls the most unpopular topic in America today: welfare. Every other person in San Francisco is on the dole. Pregnant teenage welfare mothers in orange nylon vests sweep the streets in "workfare" programs. Developmentally disabled couples rob banks. Winos, crack hippies, and refugees from every other city in the nation are now "clients" demanding food stamps. Enter Charlene Hassler, social worker. She's become a reluctant middleman in an economic shell game, and her clients have begun to bite the hand that refuses to feed them.
"Plate describes the Mission with the careful eyes of an insider and without judgement. His work includes violence and sex, not gratuitous, but always necessary as we go deeper into this human darkness of our contemporary struggle. Peter Plate is one of the most intriguing novelists writing now." - Review of Contemporary Fiction
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