Fat CityStockton, California, is the novel's setting: the Lido Gym, the Hotel Coma, Main Street's lunchrooms and dark bars offer a temporary respite to the men and women whose backbreaking work in the fields barely allows them to make a living. When two men meet in the gym the ex boxer Billy Tully and the novice Ernie Munger their brief sparring session sets into motion their hidden fates, initiating young Munger into the 'company of men' and luring Tully