Race, corporatism, and last-stand idealism: who better to explore these themes than Pulitzer Prize winner Chabon, whose linguistic razzle-dazzle discloses acute observations about our shared culture--and its borders. Its 2004, and longtime band mates Archy and Nat (married to beloved local midwives) still preside over Brokeland Records, a used-record emporium and de facto town center in a fictional space somewhere between Berkeley and Oakland. Alls well until a former NFL quarterback, one of the country's richest African Americans, decides to build his latest Dogpile megastore on nearby Telegraph Avenue. Not only could this spell doom for the little shop and its cross-race, cross-class dream, but it opens up past history regarding Archy's untethered dad and a Black Panther-era crime.