Estranged

In this stylish and gripping historical noir novel, Randall Harker—the controversial city editor of an established progressive daily in the urban Midwest of 1950—excites the wrath of a reckless, corrupt, and ambitious U.S. senator anxious to make a name for himself as the country’s most ardent anti-Communist. Decidedly flawed and afflicted by personal demons and political foes, Harker finds himself abandoned by friends and colleagues as he loses his wife, his reputation, and his job. He also finds himself losing the very sense of his own identity. With its gritty realism and dead-on period detail, the elegant prose of Estranged renders the rough-and-tumble world of mid-century journalism, the historical post-war battle between the Mob and trade unions, and the tender, intimate, and sensual moments of Harker’s desperate romantic escape from the nightmare that his personal and professional life has become. In a tale whose events and themes very much reverberate in Trump’s America, the novel addresses surprisingly contemporary concerns about gender, homosexuality, and sexism, although at an oblique, historical angle. This is a story that occurs at the intersection of public and private life, of love and work with politics and history.