COMPENSATION is concerned with the relatively brief life of salesman Art Feldman, a second generation American living with a wife and three sons in the Bronx during the 1960's. Lacking formal education, unsuccessful as a small business owner, he tries to find gratification and meaning in a job that many of his co-workers regard as a con game. Health challenges limit the time Art has available to realize his purpose. Art ends up in door-to-door sales, peddling encyclopedias, sometimes on the road. Some of his co-workers see their job as an intricate con game, but Art begins to find it gratifying to connect with his customers, learn to speak their language, and be able to provide them with a product that might prove helpful for their children. The last five years of Art's relatively short life are marked by health challenges, culminating in a diagnosis of ALS. How can Art come to grips with his terminal illness? He perseveres through his physical decline as best he can. He finds refuge by living in the present, thankful for whatever functionality his body retains at any given point, but he also tries to retain a degree of control by determining to end things if necessary. Doctors are puzzled by his attitude. Why isn't he depressed? Is it relief at no longer carrying the burden of work? What's left in the end? What is Art's legacy?The story is very much character-driven, colored by the idiosyncratic individuals who populate a lower middle class Bronx neighborhood during the early to mid-1960's. Many are first and second generation Americans, some retaining elements of traditional life, others anxious to reject Old Word habits and climb the social ladder. It is also serves as a cultural history of an era when racial bigotry was flagrant in areas of the country and diverse sexual orientation was kept under wraps. Humor plays an important part throughout the narrative, helping characters to both deal with and escape the absurdities encountered in living one's life.
