"John Delano is in trouble. A professor of Cold War Studies at a small New England college, he traffics in what others call "History McNuggets"--Gimmicky, easily digestible glimpses of our collective past. But as he struggles with his magnum opus - a major new book on the "surfaces" of the Cold War era - Delano's life begins to fall apart. The death of his troubled father, the unraveling of his marriage, and his estrangement from his younger brother conspire to set him on a collision course with his own past.

In a series of dazzingly rendered and escalating encounters, he revisits the treeless vistas of 1950s suburbia, the streets of Dallas and the JFK assassination, the Summer of Love, and other landmark moments, and finally travels into the heartland to reconnect with the brother he left behind. What he finds there, and what he makes of it, form this novel's poignant climax."--Jacket.