In a brawling Chicago of crooks, con artists, second-story men, extravagant dreamers, snappy dressers, and cold-eyed pragmatists, Augie March undergoes his sentimental education an education that, though imbued with reality, will take him into realms progressively stranger, more marvelous, more filled with indecipherable meaning.

Augie's nonconformity leads him into an eventful, humorous, and sometimes earthy way of life.