‘ This new American uniform – the baseball cap, t-shirt, shorts and trainers (why not a scooter?) is not about looking good. It’ s about disappearing into a new, unofficial, global army of cultural babies. It says:I eat hamburgers and watch TV and chew gum all dayI want everyone to play my gameYou have to be nice to me and if you’ re not I’ m gonna shoot youI can’ t understand a word you say… and what is that but American foreign policy?’ Todd McEwen left the United States in 1980, but it’ s still driving him crazy. He worries about cheeseburgers, Cary Grant, Henry David Thoreau, democracy, the Elks Club and Daffy Duck. Join him on his acid-reflux examination of what America has come to be.

'A hilarious and morose invocation of a lost world. Anyone who has ever been movie-mad will relish this irrepressibly digressive, surprise-filled, exquisitely written memoir (sort of). I certainly did.' Phillip Lopate Todd McEwen grew up in Southern California, so his head was hopelessly messed with by the movies. As the son of relatively normal people, he had no in with Hollywood, a mere thirteen miles away, try as he might. This is a kid who loved the movies so much, he got up at 4.30 in the morning to watch Laurel and Hardy. A kid who made his father project 8mm cartoons onto the family's dining room curtains so they could be slowly parted, just like at a real cinema. A guy who based his philosophy of life on Captain Nemo, and has watched Chinatown over sixty times. So far.

William Fisher lleva una vida tranquila en Boston, trabaja de administrador en el Instituto de Ciencias, tiene pareja y, ocasionalmente, toca su violín (don Chirridos). Un buen día, durante una excursión a la laguna Walden (y tras la inesperada aparición del fantasma de Thoreau), Fisher resbala sobre la superficie helada del lago y se golpea la cabeza perdiendo el conocimiento.Desde ese instante, todo parece conjurarse para que nada en la existencia de William vuelva a ser como antes. Le esperan una sucesión de bizarras coincidencias y bochornosas trifulcas que, en menos de una semana, lo empujarán a liderar una estrafalaria revolución y a participar en una espectacular persecución policial, en esta particular y satírica huida del mundo moderno y sus absurdos.

‘ This new American uniform – the baseball cap, t-shirt, shorts and trainers (why not a scooter?) is not about looking good. It’ s about disappearing into a new, unofficial, global army of cultural babies. It says:I eat hamburgers and watch TV and chew gum all dayI want everyone to play my gameYou have to be nice to me and if you’ re not I’ m gonna shoot youI can’ t understand a word you say… and what is that but American foreign policy?’ Todd McEwen left the United States in 1980, but it’ s still driving him crazy. He worries about cheeseburgers, Cary Grant, Henry David Thoreau, democracy, the Elks Club and Daffy Duck. Join him on his acid-reflux examination of what America has come to be.

'A hilarious and morose invocation of a lost world. Anyone who has ever been movie-mad will relish this irrepressibly digressive, surprise-filled, exquisitely written memoir (sort of). I certainly did.' Phillip Lopate Todd McEwen grew up in Southern California, so his head was hopelessly messed with by the movies. As the son of relatively normal people, he had no in with Hollywood, a mere thirteen miles away, try as he might. This is a kid who loved the movies so much, he got up at 4.30 in the morning to watch Laurel and Hardy. A kid who made his father project 8mm cartoons onto the family's dining room curtains so they could be slowly parted, just like at a real cinema. A guy who based his philosophy of life on Captain Nemo, and has watched Chinatown over sixty times. So far.

William Fisher lleva una vida tranquila en Boston, trabaja de administrador en el Instituto de Ciencias, tiene pareja y, ocasionalmente, toca su violín (don Chirridos). Un buen día, durante una excursión a la laguna Walden (y tras la inesperada aparición del fantasma de Thoreau), Fisher resbala sobre la superficie helada del lago y se golpea la cabeza perdiendo el conocimiento.Desde ese instante, todo parece conjurarse para que nada en la existencia de William vuelva a ser como antes. Le esperan una sucesión de bizarras coincidencias y bochornosas trifulcas que, en menos de una semana, lo empujarán a liderar una estrafalaria revolución y a participar en una espectacular persecución policial, en esta particular y satírica huida del mundo moderno y sus absurdos.