In 1927, 12-year-old orphan Walter Clairborne Rawley was walking through the air at a carnival in Kansas. It is the beginning of a wondrous career. But soon Walt - cheeky, sharp-tongued and never at a loss for a trick - and his teacher Yehudi are targeted by the villains and gangsters of America. Paul Auster's adventurous novel is a parable of economic rise and moral decline, playing with the myths and ideals of a country that still thinks it is innocent, but has long since been endangered by greed and cockiness.