The novel chronicles 60 years of U.S. politics and pop culture, from the aftermath of World War II leading up to a speculative 2020 presidential election.

The novel touches on many topics, including rock music, postmodern art, celebrity, insanity, terminal illness, the Holocaust, and United States presidential election politics.

It makes political references to the fake news website phenomenon, the rise of a third party to save a failing two-party system, and a grass-roots movement for partition and secession in California.

But the novel hints at another way its four narratives relate to one another—namely that they were collected, compiled, and arranged by one of the novel's secondary characters, Jay Bernes, and given the alternative title "the Book of J."

Michael Silverblatt, host of KCRW’s Bookworm, called the telling of Moses’s journey “funny, heartbreaking and beautiful.” [3] In a starred review, the Library Journal called the book “a solid and captivating literary experience” that “successfully engages with eternal questions of truth and evil.” [4] Heather Scott Partington, writing for Electric Literature, said that “Bauman manages to capture both the insatiable drive for fame and success, and the harsh reality of unrealized dreams that seem distinctly American.” [5] PopMatters gave the book 8 out of 10 stars, calling the book “a family drama of biblical proportions.” [6] It made book critic David Kipen’s reading picks of the month,[7] and Shelf Awareness called the book a "mind-bending work of fiction” that "represents contemporary life’s most existential crises.”[8] Writing for Whitehot Magazine, art critic Shana Nys Dambrot called it a "sweeping novel of epic human flaws and unwieldy intergenerational destiny set against the paradisiacal dystopia of the late-20th century American art world.”[9]