It's 1968. Andy Sanderson is a college freshman at the University of Minnesota initially absorbed in the campus offerings of abundant drugs and easy sex. When a baseball teammate from high school is killed in Vietnam, Andy wakes up to the urgency of the times and goes "clean for Gene," bent upon stopping the war with the presidential election. As his candidate stumbles and his girlfriend succumbs to despair, he must find the means to keep his faith alive.

Dan Malone-a conservative Chicago cop, family man, and daily communicant-is alarmed by the collapse of traditional norms amidst student revolts, antiwar protests, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy. As he struggles to restore the crumbling foundation of the country he loves, he confronts a secret he's buried that could destroy him.

The paths of these two men ultimately collide in Chicago during the Democratic National Convention-with unexpected consequences for both.

Meanwhile, Dan's wife Brigid becomes increasingly disillusioned with her role as a homemaker and revolts against her husband's authority by joining the demonstrators, which further entangles Dan and Andy.

Funny, poignant, and compelling, this story of a nation's citizens grappling to find their equilibrium during wildly divisive events resonates with today's climate in ways that reshape our ideas about love, idealism, and patriotism.

John Rosengren is a Pulitzer Prize nominee and freelance journalist who has written for The Atlantic, Esquire, GQ, The New Yorker, and Sports Illustrated, among other publications. He's the author of ten other books, including The Greatest Summer in Baseball History: How the '73 Season Changed Us Forever and the novel A Clean Heart. His Atavist article about a killer granny with a gambling problem was made into the HBO Max documentary series I'm Not a Monster: The Lois Riess Murders. His work has been anthologized alongside that of Maya Angelou, Marlon James, Bill Moyers, George Saunders, and Meg Wolitzer. Rosengren earned his master's degree in creative writing from Boston University, where he studied with Saul Bellow and Derek Walcott. Rosengren lives in Minneapolis with his wife Maria and their golden retriever Maya.