Synopsis

One man.

Zero chance of winning.

Nothing left to lose.

After the pandemic costs him his career—and his sense of purpose—Tristan Heller makes an unthinkable decision: he runs for president of the United States. Not to win, but to say what no one else will.

Backed by a scrappy crew of Silicon Valley outsiders, Tristan’s long-shot campaign cuts through the noise of the 2024 election with blunt, incendiary truth. What begins as a protest quickly gains traction—drawing attention from voters hungry for honesty … and from forces far more dangerous.

As his message spreads, so does the backlash. Online fury spills into the real world. Money, misinformation, and power close ranks. And Tristan finds himself in a fight he never intended to start, against a system that doesn’t reward disruption, and the people who will do anything to silence it.

In a nation defined by division, speaking the truth can make you a target.

A sharp, provocative literary novel with the pulse of a political thriller, Tristan 4 America is a story about ambition, disillusionment, and the high cost of trying to change a country on the brink.

Amazon

Excerpt

Cruelty piled on cruelty when Tristan Heller and his team were laid off at the end of that pandemic summer. Just as the restrictions were easing, Tristan was convincing himself that the end of the lockdown was coming and that his Sales Enablement Outreach team would be ready to hit the road again, that was when the guillotine came crashing down.

The loss of a reliable livelihood had been the most obvious blow— his company, Mammon, Inc., was one of the durable darlings of tech. But even worse for Tristan was the thing that had already been taken away by the pandemic, the thing he and the team were desperate to get back to: the trips out into the world to meet with all those people. Sales teams out in the field of Mammon’s global enterprise, colleagues new and old, the young virtual sales agents just getting started and the grizzled account managers who rubbed shoulders with billionaire customer CEOs, and everyone in-between—these were the constituents of Sales Enablement Outreach, and Tristan was already missing them dearly.

He had purposely kept his team small: just himself, acting as VP, and three directors, Laz, Shonda, and Nance, who would all either travel as a foursome or split off into teams of two to cover the globe. For three glorious years, they had spent two to three weeks every month on the road, meeting with leaders to share the latest marvels headquarters had created to help the salespeople sell, then meeting with the salespeople themselves to gather feedback and concerns. Back at headquarters, all this would be synthesized into presentations Tristan would make to the executive team and the board. In executive and board meetings that might otherwise devolve into tiresome number crunching or useless bickering, Tristan knew his team’s presentations were the highlight. Executives ate them up, and they told him so. Then they backed it up in writing: after each of Tristan’s appearances, e-mails flooded the inboxes of Salvatore Miceli, Mammon’s EVP of Sales, and Brian Campbell, the CEO.

Which is why Tristan never thought Brian would let him go. The close relationship he and Brian had built during their early days in the company’s trenches had left Tristan feeling impervious, so even though the CEO, to his credit, met with Tristan personally to lower the boom, the news was still a thunderstrike.

The day Brian called, Tristan had been at his desk putting together a skeleton travel calendar for the team. The company had already gone through two rounds of early retirements and layoffs, offices were slowly beginning to reopen, and Tristan had gotten signals from HR that both the lockdown and the travel ban would soon be lifted. After a brutal summer of isolation in his home office, the anticipation was helping Tristan feel human again. Then there was a quick exchange of pings, and Tristan was on the video call with Brian, and in those dark days of the pandemic, the first topic was always the same.

“Yeah, my brother just tested positive,” Brian said.

“He lives in Austin, right?” Tristan said.

“Yep. F*ing Texas, man.”

Tristan sat in a well-appointed home office he shared with his wife, Cindy: dual convertible stand-up desks, Herman Miller chairs, state-of-the art monitors and high-speed networking, and canvas prints of Cindy’s photos from their European vacations on the walls. Brian, however, was at another level entirely, sitting before alder-wood bookcases tastefully appointed with photos of Brian with the governor and each of California’s U.S. senators, trophies the company had won as the No. 2 Best Place to Work and the No. 1 Best Workplace for LGBTQ Employees, and several of the CEO’s latest books on business and leadership development.

“Shit, Brian,” Tristan said, “I’m really sorry to hear that. Are his symptoms bad?”

“Nah. He’s built like a brick shithouse. Says he’s a little more tired than usual is all. I’m pretty sure he’ll come out of it fine.”

“That’s a relief. Fingers crossed for him.” Tristan took in a photo of Cindy that sat next to his monitor. Neither of them had contracted the virus, and each time he learned of a new infection, he was jarred by the thought of losing her, of the sudden, merciless jolt that had shocked so many families, and would certainly destroy him. Cindy was all he had.

“Thanks,” Brian said. “Listen, Tristan, I can’t sugarcoat it. I’ve got some bad news.”

Tristan snapped back to attention. “I’m listening,” he said.

“Sal and I have been talking, and we’ve decided we need to let you and your team go.”

About the Author

Bruce Overby is a native of San Jose, California, with an MFA in Writing from Queens University of Charlotte. He is also a veteran of a 35-year career in Silicon Valley. His story “Bookmarks” won First Prize in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition, and his debut novel, The Cyclone Release, published in November 2022, was a finalist in the Madville Publishing Blue Moon Novel Competition. His second novel, Tristan 4 America, is due out from Willow River Press in October 2026.

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