In Spring 1992, Washington’s top defense company players hone their best pitches, bent on winning the House’s lush military contracts. Except for Will Day, Director of Public Affairs at Computer Control, Inc, who sits at home trying to write a poem. A first-class fixer, Will leads the congressional princes to the trough term after term, assuring safe harbor for ComCon’s top-flight computer program. After 20 years, however, he feels worn out from breeding, feeding, and bleeding the House overlords to keep the company’s coffers full. This year is no different.
Will longs to return to the days when he hoped to be an English professor working nights as a poet. Rest would come in winsome dreams beneath giant campus palm trees. But he has a family now, two misunderstandable teenagers and his lovely, demanding wife who also seeks success at ComCon. Will is ready to pack it in, but the rest of the players are not-not at all. And they have their own game plans for what could be the longest year of his career. Chinese Restaurants follows Will as he negotiates what promises to be the most interesting time of his life.