It is hard to think of a writer who has shown more breadth and depth of talent, over the course of just two novels, than Wilton Barnhardt. His first -- the coming-of-age story Emma Who Saved My Life -- was hailed as "immensely winning", a book that "shines with the fresh discovery of life and dreams". His second -- Gospel, a novel of religion and adventure -- was called "an enormous banquet", "a great novel, to be read with the best of care and joy".

His new novel will astonish and move every one of his awaiting readers, and win him many more. It follows Samantha Flint, an aspiring writer and struggling publicist who careens blindly from New York to Washington to Los Angeles, never even quite knowing what she's chasing. Hers is that peculiarly American dream: to shake the past, to invent a future she can live with. But after a series of moral compromises -- some desperate, some careless -- Sam finds that her dreams, through neglect, have turned against her.

A woman's story, charged with indignation and empathy, Show World is Wilton Barnhardt's clear-eyed estimate of America and what we all want out of her.