The Anarchist, a historical novel, dramatizes the interplay of forces leading to the assassination of an American president at the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Through linking first-person narratives, the novel explores the interrelated lives of fictional as well as historical figures, mainly Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, William McKinley and McKinley's assassin Leon Czolgosz, at a turbulent time in American history, a time of protests, hangings, hunger riots, strikes, bombings and massacres. Although a tragedy in part, The Anarchist also depicts the permutations of love, idealism and coming of age in the time of anarchism in the United States, while evoking parallels to contemporary economic and social issues.