The Meritocracy Quartet

Having introduced an unprecedented realism to American television through his work as a writer and producer on Hill Street Blues?work which earned him two Emmys and a Writers' Guild Award?Jeffrey Lewis's rich and complex relationship with American culture, upon which his writing has drawn deeply, required a new kind of telling. In an ambitious departure, Lewis conceived a series of four novels, each of which would follow the leaders of American culture through a decade of their lives. In so doing it would trace the very substance of America's contemporary history through its unfolding. The series is a sweeping meditation on his generation and where it has led America, from the sixties to the turn of the century.

For the first time the four interlinking novels?Meritocracy: A Love Story, The Conference of the Birds, Theme Song for an Old Show, and Adam the King?are published in a single volume. Set over four decades against the backdrop of changing American landscape, Lewis's characters sweep in and out of the narrative, reflecting the passage of time and the rise of different social-cultural ideals and influences. The four novels are a testament to America's changing personality, each seeking to define it for itself. For America is the central character and the quartet is the song of one generation passing through it, from the tragedy of wealth and potential to the search for meaning in a chaotic world and the highs and lows of celebrity. Each book is a life and a death, each a new start and a finality. The Meritocracy Quartet is a breathtaking panorama and an expression of how and why, but more than this, it is a story beautifully told.