Put Out, set in September 1986, follows three men in their early 40s on a two-week bicycle camping trip through northwest California. All three men live slightly outside of the American mainstream, and this is the fifth such trip that the men have taken together over the past ten years, but the first on the west coast. Although the novel often has a comic tone, it explores the limits and competitiveness of their friendships, their struggles with aging, the consequences of recklessness and cowardice, and expiation.