Full Moon Over America - Hardcover

Simpson, Thomas William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446518085 ISBN 13: 9780446518086

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 1994

Synopsis

In 2001, following the abolishment of the Electoral College and subsequent election of Willy Mackenzie, America's youngest and most radical president ever, an eccentric tale recounts Willy's ancestry and the impact of the American press on the course of history.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In the past decade few American novelists have displayed the originality, the sense of adventure, and the storytelling magic of Thomas William Simpson. Now the author of This Way Madness Lies and The Gypsy Storyteller extends his literary powers, spinning an uproarious and often disturbing tale about a place called America, and all the fools, dreamers, villains, and heroes who have made it what it is. It's dawn in America. At least it's dawn in the Blue Mountains, where the nation's eyes are turned. Because on this day, January 20, 2001, Inauguration Day, a man who is spectacularly unqualified to be president - a man who's only thirty-three years old, who wants his mother to be vice president, who has never held a job, and has no apparent political point of view at all - is about to be sworn in as the forty-fourth president of the United States. Several problems, however, block William Conrad Brant MacKenzie's entrance to the Oval Office. First, the rumor mill is flooded with talk that Willy may be insane or at least emotionally unstable. Second, the Supreme Court has refused to recognize his election because of his age. And third, even if Willy is inaugurated, he may have a difficult time presiding over the nation. As the twenty-first century dawns, the United States is in a rapid state of political and social decline. So how did Willy MacKenzie, scion of one of America's wealthiest and most eccentric families, get elected in the first place? To find the answer, Mr. Jack Steel, a renegade broadcaster, Willy's own personal Mephisto, takes us on a journey through the twentieth century. We meet Willy's robber baron great-grandfather, Ulysses S. Grant MacKenzie; his reclusive, war herofather; his mother, a strong and magical woman with an Iroquois ancestry; and Dawn, the great love of his life. Skillfully and cunningly, Steel weaves a story of a nation in transition, of war and peace, of political skullduggery and environmental disaster, and a generational struggle crowded with ambition, corruption, and lost innocence. As the journalist speaks, and more than one hundred years of American history flash by, the suspense mounts around Willy's inauguration. Will Willy MacKenzie actually take the oath of office? Or is he only a pawn in a grand and sinister scheme? In the Thomas William Simpson tradition of irresistibly readable fiction laced with a hard edge of social satire, Full Moon over America is a family saga unlike any other. For in this funny, sprawling, unconventional novel, the family is our own - and the saga is unfolding right now.

About the Author:

Full Moon Over America was my third published novel with Warner Books. Warner paid me handsomely because of The Gypsy Storyteller and This Way Madness Lies. Those novels had sold well and been enthusiastically received by reviewers. I received lots of advice on what I should write next. Of course, I didn’t listen because I’ve never been good at listening to reasonable, conservative people who usually know more than I do. It is my Achilles’ heel. But also it is the quality that has allowed me live an irregular life and write a unique and diverse bunch of novels. Full Moon Over America was the beginning of the end of my commercial career. My editor, the lovely and brilliant Ms. Jamie Raab, had no idea what to make of the novel. It was difficult to summarize or categorize. Describing the story in a few sentences, a requirement for attention deficient Americans, was impossible. Likely it was doomed from its conception. I'm amazed Larry Kirshbaum and Jamie Raab and others at Warner approved the novel’s publication. For that support, despite the book being a commercial dud, I will always be grateful. Why? Because I think Full Moon is my most creative and imaginative novel to date. Full Moon Over America is intensely political in its point of view, and politics has never been an easy sell to the American fiction reading public. I am offering the book for sale here in the hope of a second coming. As I said, Warner did not know how to market the book and so they slipped and the novel fell through the cracks. Now, with Trump in the White House, perhaps the critics will see just how visionary Full Moon Over America really was. I was raised in a very political household. Dad was conservative, Mom moderate in her political views. I came of age during the Vietnam War and the college protests and the Watergate hearings. I remember watching those hearings on TV one summer while sick in bed with mononucleosis. I can still hear the lies and deceits well told. My cynicism and disillusionment in our political system had real and, I think, justifiable roots. It was, at least in part, this cynicism and disillusionment that led to the writing of Full Moon Over America. For those who lived through that time, the novel will be an interesting refresher. For those who came along later, Full Moon will hopefully be a revelation. Full Moon is everything great fiction should be—entertaining, daring, demanding, inventive, eccentric, and reflective.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0446518085
• ISBN 13: 9780446518086
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416