The central character is Harry Silver, a professor based in New York City whose specialty is "Nixonology", the study of former US President Richard Nixon.

[1] His brother George is a TV executive who ends up in a psychiatric ward after a car accident in which two people die.

He moves from Manhattan into George's suburban life to care for his dog, and nephew and niece, a boy and a girl who each attend elite boarding schools.

He noted that Harry is "a figurative cousin to Jack Gladney, the “Hitler studies” scholar in DeLillo’s “White Noise”.

"[3] The Guardian found it a "very uneven novel, rickety, meandering and repetitive", impressive in its humor but featuring "an uneasy mixture of truism (be nice to children, animals, strangers) and kitsch (form friendships with immigrants who work at fast food outlets, listen to the wise medicine man)".