Desk and Debit; Or, the Catastrophes of a Clerk

Phil Farringford has never known his mother, and he's finished waiting. When he convinces his father to let him leave St. Louis for Chicago, he's not just seeking a new life as an entry clerk in a lumber firm, he's searching for the woman who vanished from his family story. The city offers no warmth: cramped boarding houses, demanding employers, and a cast of characters ranging from a foul-tempered old woman to fellow clerks whose morals are as questionable as their accounting. As Phil tackles the daily catastrophes of office life, balancing debit columns that never quite balance and dodging the petty cruelties of the workplace, he must also navigate the harder question of who he wants to become. This is a Victorian boy's-own-adventure filtered through the humdrum drudgery of the 19th-century clerk: no pirates, no explosions, just the quiet heroism of showing up, doing honest work, and holding onto hope that somewhere, someone is waiting to be found. For readers who like their coming-of-age stories with ink stains on the fingers and a train ticket as the only inheritance.