Ron Pullins’s Dollartorium is a fable of sorts about the dangers of unbridled capitalism and greed and the reward of honest work.

The novel centers on Ralph, his wife Phyllis and daughter Stella. Ralph owns Ralph’s Corny Doo Doggery, a Kansas corn dog shop. Ralph and his family raise hogs, grow corn and then turn their bounty into the best corn dogs around. The shop is in a small town, with a farm out the back door; the family lives in a small apartment over the store.

While Ralph studies Plato, his wife is into money. “This has created a great desire in her,” writes the author. “A hunger. But not a kind of hunger which might be sated with a Corny Doo. You cannot squiggle mustard on a dollar bill and eat it.”

Disenchanted with her lot, Phyllis encounters the Money Master, who steps out of her television and promises to enroll Ralph in the Dollartorium to learn how to make money. “The Dollartorium is not a school, nor a place, nor a house… nothing like Mar-a-Lago. Well, maybe a little bit like Mar-a-Lago.” It’s a place “where darkness is light, where evil is good, where truth is a lie. Where, if you ask any question, the answer is cash.”

As the novel details Ralph’s journey, it pokes fun at greed, capitalism, Republicans and the American dream. While it’s quirky and silly, liberal readers will likely enjoy this cautionary tale against unchecked greed. Pullins is an engaging storyteller, and silliness is part of his charm.

Conservatives, however, might take offense at having their beliefs belittled, while rural readers will find it hard to accept the premise of a family living in town while managing a pigsty and cornfields (right out back, no less) and still making corn dogs every day.

Believability isn’t really the point, though, and for the right audience, the author’s winking tone and amusing asides provide an entertaining read.