At the heart of At the Bottom of Everything is Adam Sanecki, an appealing yet somewhat callow Ivy League graduate a few years out of school, living in his hometown, Washington. He has spent years trying not to think about his former best friend, Thomas Pell. Adam’s current antipathy extends to Thomas’s parents: he recalls with a wince that he had even, “one especially, unproud morning, turned and speed-walked out of Safeway because I’d seen Thomas’s dad, or someone who looked like Thomas’s dad, rooting around in the bin of red peppers.”