A hilarious, biting satire of the United States and its unpredictable leader from the best-selling author of The Circle

The grand ship Glory has been skilfully captained for years, but when its well-loved old skipper decides to step down, a new leader thrusts himself forward and a new era begins.

The new Captain is vulgar, bumbling and inexplicably confident. With no knowledge of nautical navigation or maritime law - nor even, as he has repeatedly remarked, a particular liking for boats - he solemnly swears to shake things up.

Together with his band of petty thieves and confidence men known as the Upskirt Boys, the Captain enthralls his passengers: writing his dreams and notions on the cafeteria whiteboard, boasting of his exemplary anatomy, devouring cheeseburgers, and tossing anyone who dissatisfies him overboard.

Until one day a famous pirate, long feared by passengers of the Glory but revered by the Captain for how phenomenally masculine he looks without a shirt while riding a horse, appears on the horizon . . .

“A funny, macabre, and inspired modern fable about a boat and its captain. If there is any further metaphor involved, though, it is totally lost on me.” BJ NOVAK

“A shattering, hilarious, spellbinding siren call from the deck of one of our greatest storytellers and prophets” EVE ENSLER

“Utterly hysterical. This book gets it exactly right - the tone, the form, the kind of naive narrative that implies that all this is perfectly normal. I laughed out loud so frequently I was amazed, because I'm not that easy to make laugh out loud. Bravo.” ERIC IDLE

“Completely absurd and true. As funny as it is scarily reflective of our times.” TOMMY ORANGE

Dave Eggers is the author of twelve books, including The Monk of Mokha; The Circle; Heroes of the Frontier; A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award; and What Is the What, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of France's Prix Médicis Etranger.

He is the founder of McSweeney's and the co-founder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing centre that has inspired similar programs around the world, and of ScholarMatch, which connects donors with students to make college accessible. He is the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and is the co-founder of Voice of Witness, a book series that illuminates human rights crises through oral history.