 She hires Paul Garcia to work as her property manager, and they begin a romantic relationship, though Catt is still married to an older philosopher in New York City.A recovering alcoholic, Paul is on parole after spending two years in prison for “stealing less than an art gallery spends on an after-party.” Eventually Paul is pulled over for speeding and arrested in fulfillment of an outstanding warrant, and the pair embarks on a grueling legal process involving inhumane prison practices and impossible parole stipulations.Back in Los Angeles Catt studies and teaches “all the books about symbolic violence, soft forms of control,” but the forms of control to which Paul is subject are neither soft nor symbolic.