In the Roaring Twenties, Edward Cumming might have become a railroad businessman, but he was more interested in literature. During the Depression, he tried to write a book about historical castrations. At thirty-nine, he died by suicide.

What went wrong for him? A lack of focus? A problem of fate? The number forty? Or was his book haunted?

In this train ride of an American biography, Tucker Lieberman tells the story of the would-be scholar of eunuchs. It is an essay about war, racism, gender, time, mortality, free will, money, argument, information architecture, and why a writer might not finish a book.

A hypno-saga...experimental, tender, angry, freighted.