Victor Barstow, downsized from a great human-resources job at a Baltimore business, is eking out a living selling shoes in a mall … wondering how he’ll send his daughter to college … when he gets a long-shot chance to compete for the top job at an elite hiking-boot company up north. So Victor dives into meeting a farcical series of demands from the quirky owners of the boot company … striving against some fairly odd characters. It’s kind of a hero’s quest, with witty observations from our hapless hero. We ask Richard Bader, who titled his first novel Booted, what the quest is about.