Ted Grayson has been in the mainstream media for his entire career, the last 20 years as an anchor for his network's nightly news. He's used to getting attention and is a bit of a prima donna. On the evening of his 59th birthday, he's already upset because his wife is going to leave him and because he and his twenty-eight-year-old daughter are estranged. He has a substitute make-up person, a young woman from Poland whom he imagines is mocking him even though it's not true. He blows up just before he goes live, while she's filming him with her phone to show to her sister. The make-up woman is fired, and because she no longer has anything to lose, she uploads the video of Ted's vitriol to social media, where it goes viral. The result is that Ted's long career is in jeopardy, as well. Meanwhile, Ted's daughter, Franny, has been tasked by her odious boss at a social media company to do a write-up about her father to capitalize on all the clicks this will generate.
The novel traces human frailties, especially regarding miscommunication, which seems to happen so very frequently. There is also discussion of the failures of mainstream media versus the unregulated world of social media.
