A hilarious, biting satire of the United States and its unpredictable leader from the best-selling author of The Circle.

The grand ship Glory has been skilfully captained for years, but when its well-loved old skipper decides to step down, a new leader thrusts himself forward and a new era begins. The new Captain is vulgar, bumbling and inexplicably confident. With no knowledge of nautical navigation or maritime law - nor even, as he has repeatedly remarked, a particular liking for boats - he solemnly swears to shake things up. Together with his band of petty thieves and confidence men known as the Upskirt Boys, the Captain enthralls his passengers: writing his dreams and notions on the cafeteria whiteboard, boasting of his exemplary anatomy, devouring cheeseburgers, and tossing anyone who dissatisfies him overboard.

Until one day a famous pirate, long feared by passengers of the Glory but revered by the Captain for how phenomenally masculine he looks without a shirt while riding a horse, appears on the horizon....

Dave Eggers is the author of 12 books, including The Monk of Mokha; The Circle; Heroes of the Frontier; A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award; and What Is the What, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of France's Prix Médicis Etranger. He is the founder of McSweeney's and the cofounder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing centre that has inspired similar programs around the world, and of ScholarMatch, which connects donors with students to make college accessible. He is the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and is the cofounder of Voice of Witness, a book series that illuminates human rights crises through oral history.