This novel is set in the upheaval of the 1960s. The Cuban missile crisis has brought the Communist threat to within miles of the United States, and extremist movements roil the American Right. Two college students, Woodroe Raynor and Leonora Goldstein, meet in the fall of 1960. They embark on separate paths: Woodroe goes to work for the indiscriminately anti-Communist John Birch Society, while Leonora becomes a novice in the libertarian-objectivist cult of novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand. But a singular romance blooms as they make their way through a tumultuous era, navigating the political fault line that would change American history. Woodroe, a former Mormon missionary to Austria, has experienced first-hand the workings of Communist repression, and has the bullet wound to prove Soviet tenacity. Through his eyes, we see how anti-Communism defined American politics, and how Communist-in-every-bed extremists nearly defeated their own cause. Leonora, meanwhile, works at the feet of the brilliant, resourceful, and imaginative Ayn Rand. Through her, we witness how sexual passion shaped Rand's movement. Buckley sweeps us along, as we meet and mingle with some of the towering figures --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.