Summary

In the section entitled "Overture: To America" the narrator describes how over time his views on American culture and society have shifted from his father’s blind love for America, to the more critical stance taken by his former professor in college, Mary Manoni, and his mother. The narrator laments the decline of American culture and prosperity, noting friends and family who fallen into bleak and desperate lives.

The chronology of events begins with the narrator's parents’ marriage in the late 1960s and ends in 2018 with the narrator beginning to write the current book.

Chapter I begins describing the reclusive behavior of Donald Trump in the early 1990s. His business ventures have been doing and he has needed to take on significant amounts of debt in order to keep them afloat. He has separated from his wife, living in...