Deeply grieving, Oscar feels his life slipping out of his control. A one-night stand with a woman named Dawn becomes volatile when, on the first day of classes, he realizes she is his student, and later learns that she is a fledgling campus drug lord. Worse, his family is in debt, having lost their modest savings to a self-help guru who had indoctrinated Oscar's mother. Desperate to help his family, Oscar agrees to help Dawn with a drug run.

A Philosophy of Ruin rumbles with brooding nihilism, then it cracks like a whip, hurtling Oscar and Dawn toward a terrifying threat on the road. Taut, ferocious and blazingly intelligent, A Philosophy of Ruin is a heart-pounding thrill ride into the darkest corners of human geography, and a philosophical reckoning with the forces that determine our destiny.