It is the last of the novels of Shaw's middle period before he began to concentrate, in his last works such as Evening In Byzantium, Nightwork, Bread Upon The Waters and Acceptable Losses on the inevitability of impending death.

The bulk of the novel concerns the three children of German Americans Mary Pease and Axel Jordache – the eldest, Gretchen, the middle child, Rudolph, and the youngest, Thomas.

The tripwire that sets all of the ensuing plot action in motion occurs when Gretchen Jordache begins an affair with the president of the company she works for, Teddy Boylan, a man much older than herself.

Eventually her brothers Rudolph and Thomas also become involved with Boylan, in different ways, and it is his influence upon all three that first springs each of them into the world beyond the small upstate New York town where their parents scrape by with their bakery.

Many people, mainly because of their familiarity with the miniseries rather than the actual source material, thought of the story as a very simplistic juxtaposition of the virtuous, goody two shoes brother (Rudolph) with the black sheep, ne'er-do-well younger sibling (Thomas, whom Shaw seeks to differentiate psychologically by means of a physical symbol – he is the only blond haired member of the family), but the novel is much more complex than this in its demonstrative understructure.

A couple of examples: Thomas' only friend in the world, Claude, gives him up immediately to the authorities the second his own well-being is threatened, and when Axel Jordache learns of Tom's actions his only impulse is to get rid of him, to send him away to live with family in Ohio.

In 2011, a Turkish drama was also an adaptation of Rich Man, Poor Man with a different twist: in Kuzey Güney miniseries, starring Kıvanç Tatlıtuğ, Buğra Gülsoy and Öykü Karayel, Kuzey was shown as the tough, wild and rebellious son (but inside he was noble and child hearten person) and Güney was shown as an responsible, calm and clean son of a hate-filled couple Sami and Handan Tekinoglu of Istanbul.