Happy Utopia Day, Joe McCarthy

Combining political satire with espionage parody, J. T. Lundy tells the story of an unlikely secret agent facing a bizarre, xenophobic government conspiracy

Chris Thompson thought his youthful dreams of being a secret agent had long ago been put to rest. He has a wife and child, a stable job with the US Customs Department, and—aside from a minor incident involving outsourcing American apple pie production to Bangladesh—no real worries.

This all changes when Chris receives a phone call from the president of the United States, Oscar I. Wright, regarding a secret invasion of America from Canada and Mexico—an invasion somehow tied to the “Big Mac Party,” a cultish political party that worships the legacy of the notorious Communist-hunting Senator Joseph McCarthy. Soon, Chris is equipped with firearms, designer suits, government helicopters, and an array of gadgets worthy of any top-notch spy. His mission: infiltrate the mysterious “Emergence” program founded by McCarthy within the shadowy halls of the US government—and, ultimately, save democracy as we know it from the xenophobic demons of America’s past.

A unique, bubbling combination of Christopher Buckley-esque satire, political farce, and espionage comedy, Happy Utopia Day, Joe McCarthy reveals—through encounters with a hilarious cast of hallucinating politicians, Border Patrol commandants, crew-cut torturers, stuttering computer wizards, supposedly immortal pilots, and more—just how frightening a contemporary abuse of government power can be, and just how much we sometimes stand to lose when we decide to pursue our dreams.