After graduating from film school, Stan McCague moves from Chicago to Los Angeles to pursue his dream of working as a Hollywood screenwriter. Instead, he finds work as a Hollywood reader, analyzing the scripts others write for dicey producers, shady literary managers, and anybody else who will pay him for his opinion. Along the way, he plots against friends who are plotting against him, moves through an array of bad romantic relationships, and struggles to understand why his life and career have left him unfulfilled.
Will Stan ever find happiness? If he does, does he even deserve it?