How did a onetime bodybuilding champion and gay pinup, with no political experience and a string of mediocre action movies to his name, come to take over the world's fifth-largest economy? This witty and biting travelogue through the intersection of celebrity culture with American political life lays bare the dark implications of Schwarzenegger's rise to power in the Golden State.

Gary Indiana, whose essays have appeared in the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and the London Review of Books, is the author of six novels and several nonfiction books. He lives in New York City and Los Angeles.