?I am an excellent judge of men and I am sure I will not regret my choice. But it is essential you get to know the company as soon as possible. The post I am offering you is that of General Manager of Jeremias Petrus Ltd.? With all the enthusiasm of a man condemned to be hanged, Larsen takes up his new post. Like the other workers at the shipyard, he routinely goes through the motions. Every so often, his sense of reality is shaken by a tremor of self-deception and then it is possible for him to believe that the yard's glory is not just a thing of the past. Like Faulkner, a writer he greatly admires, with his imaginary county of Yoknapatawpha, Onetti has created his own, starkly real region of Santa Maria. By the end of the novel we know, love and care for all its despairing inhabitants.