“This wholly American novel follows Jack Denton, a reporter turned novelist who is simultaneously covering the Trump campaign while serving as a consultant for a TV show adaptation of his book. Denton contends with the denizens of Hollywood and the campaign trail, even as his own personal life seems to unravel in front of him. Maier’s novel is one in a tidal wave of books about Trump’s America and the #MeToo movement. What he adds to the discourse is to draw some intriguing historical parallels between Trump and nineteenth-century railway tycoon Austin Corbin. Maier’s superimposition of a nineteenth-century plot on a modern-day one gives life to the standard ‘Hollywood-is-cutthroat’ tale.”

—The BookLife Prize sponsored by Publishers Weekly