As the world is being transformed by astonishing new technologies and ideas, in one single, monumental month of 1848 gold is discovered in California, the United States wins its first foreign war, rebellion erupts throughout Europe--and an eager young English gentleman named Benjamin Knowles plunges into love with the strong-minded New York actress and part-time prostitute Polly Lucking. He also meets her brother Duff, a dangerously damaged veteran of the Mexican War, and befriends the unforgettable Timothy Skaggs--journalist, daguerrotypist, mischief maker, stargazer. As they set out on a wild, extraordinary transcontinental race west, lured by the prospect of easy wealth and new beginnings, they are unaware that a stranger bent on revenge shadows their every move.

Kurt Andersen is a American novelist who is currently a columnist for New York Magazine ("The Imperial City"), and host of the public radio program Studio 360, which he co-created. In 1986 with E. Graydon Carter he co-founded Spy magazine, which they sold in 1991; it continued publishing until 1998. Previously he was a columnist for The New Yorker ("The Culture Industry") and Time ("Spectator"). A Harvard graduate, he was born in Omaha, Nebraska and now lives in New York City with his wife Anne Kreamer and his two daughters, Kate and Lucy.