Rushdie bringing out novel on contemporary America

Salman Rushdie is publishing a new novel, The Golden House, with Vintage imprint Jonathan Cape in September.

The book is a modern-day thriller set against a backdrop of American culture and politics since the inauguration of Barack Obama. It is about a young American film maker whose involvement with a secretive, tragedy-haunted family teaches him how to become a man.

The novel tracks life over the past eight years, including: the rise of conservative political group the Tea Party; 2014 hashtag campaign Gamergate; identity politics; the backlash against political correctness; and, what is described as, "the insurgence of a ruthlessly ambitious, narcissistic, media-savvy villain sporting make-up and coloured hair".

The book will publish simultaneously in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India, South Africa and Germany. Jonathan Cape acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada and India, from Andrew Wylie. 

The publisher said: "In a new world order of alternative truths, Salman Rushdie has written the ultimate novel about identity, truth, terror and lies. A brilliant, heartbreaking, realist novel that is not only uncannily prescient but shows one of the world’s greatest storytellers working at the height of his powers". 

Rushdie, a 2008 Booker award-winning author of 12 previous novels, translated into over 40 languages, last published Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights in September 2015, inspired by the traditional "wonder tales" of the East. It sold 4,345 copies last year, according to Nielsen.