Set in New Orleans and offshore during the oil boom of the late seventies and early eighties, Keys to the "V" Door is a coming of age adventure story of privileged youth who, instead of getting to enjoy a maturity of social advantages, finds he has to redress a wrong he committed as he tries to prove his father didn't cheat the IRS. During his odyssey, Randall Cunningham recovers from the destitution he is reduced to when his father is arrested to track down an invoice he is sure would prove his innocence. While doing so he accesses inner strengths conformism once hid, redresses a wrong he committed, finds love, finds respect for women and helps establish a rape crisis center, fights the mafia, learns to appreciate those who he once just dismissed, and learns to take pride in the inadvertent professions of roustabout and roughneck he had to acquire in his pursuit of the paperwork. A yuppie becomes a hand, and is proud of it.