A satirical novel of American politics follows a reporter as he is questioned about a plot to assassinate the president, and introduces a cast of bizarre characters, including a socialite and ex1980s party girl, a senator who is sleeping with a porn star, a retired transvestite ballerina, and many others.
A satirical novel of American politics follows a reporter as he is questioned about a plot to assassinate the president, and introduces characters that include a socialite and ex-1980s party girl, a senator who is sleeping with a porn star, and a retired transvestite ballerina.
Delancey, a reporter for the East Hampton Star, is being sent to cover the environmental budget wars of the 104th Congress, his copy of Henry Adams's Democracy in hand, for background on the farrago called government. It introduces us to le tout de Washington: the socialite Anastasia Harrington and her billionaire husband, Max; a senator obsessed with the fall of the republic and with his rogue companion, an ex-hustler and congressional phone-sex virtuoso; the semiretired transvestite ballerina Odette O'Doyle and the diva Vana Sprezza; and Delancey's new friend, Ornette, a living antidote to the racism of our times, who sympathizes with the sexually profligate President.
From Delancey's trip on the Metroliner where it all begins, to a drink-soaked escapade in Key West, to soirees at the Harringtons' and the Cosmos Club, to the grand finale, McCourt shows us the pyrotechnic power plays of the nineties, eerily parallel to (but far deadlier than) those portrayed in Adams's chronicle of earlier times.
