Set among the spinning cogs and wheels of a lavish dinner club for the "gastronomical Elect," The Ruins is a black-eyed, Machiavellian fairy tale for adults. As such, it turns on subjection - the increasingly comic and catastrophic subjection of "our hero, Tom." A high-minded and half-starved shoeshine boy, Tom shifts for himself in a dank and vaguely apocalyptic city. Easily enticed from the artless squalor of his past into the dazzling and treacherous table politics of The Ruins, our hero soon finds himself at escalating odds with the diabolical proprietor, Jones. Tom's ill-fated efforts to reform The Ruins - finally and improbably rewarded at the glittering Fool's Ball - lead him on a devastating rise and illustrious tumble to humility, humanity, and practical grace.