Thirty years in the writing, Selden Edwardss dazzling first novel is an irresistible triumph of the imagination. Wheeler Burdenbanking heir, philosopher, student of history, legends son, rock idol, writer, lover, recluse, half-Jew, and Harvard baseball heroone day finds himself wandering not in his hometown of San Francisco in 1988 but in a city and time he knows mysteriously well: Vienna, 1897. Before long, Wheeler acquires a mentor in Sigmund Freud, a bitter rival, a powerful crush on a luminous young woman, and encounters everyone from an eight-year-old Adolf Hitler to Mark Twain as well as the young members of his own family. Solving the riddle of Wheelers dislocation in time will ultimately reveal nothing short of one eccentric familys unrivaled impact upon the course of human history.