At once immediate and epic, funny and devastating, this new novel by the author of Shadowbahn is a transcendent dispatch from the intersection of art and politics, passion and memory.

One November night in a canyon outside L.A., Zan Nordhoc--a failed novelist turned pirate radio DJ--sits before the television with his small, adopted black daughter, watching the election of his country's first black president, Barack Obama.

In the nova of this historic moment, with an economic recession threatening their home, Zan, his wife and their son set out to solve the enigma of the little...