Men Giving Money, Women Yelling is a collection of stories in which the characters' lives are told in tales that overlap or echo one another in some way. At the center of the stories is Denny Ring, a young man nobody quite knows. Other characters include John Corey, a contractor who renovates old houses in New Haven, Connecticut; his younger brother, Eugene, a volunteer in a soup kitchen; and his older brother, Cameron, a lawyer specializing in "obnoxious law."