Summary

The book begins with an Author’s Note stating that all of the events and characters depicted are fictional. On the following page, however, an epigraph states: “I, in fact, am the only fictional character in the book until I catch up with myself” (2).

The opening section is called A Fool’s Gold and is written as a longform magazine article about the theft of a gold bar. The article begins with a description of the night a 30-year old man named Jake bludgeoned someone over the head with a gold bar, at an illegal rave in West Yorkshire, United Kingdom during the height of the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020. Afterwards, Jake and the gold bar both went missing. The article presents itself as an attempt to uncover what happened to them both.

The author of the article turns to the subject of Richard Spencer...