The Debate: A Novel About Intercollegiate Debate

Richard Hobbes plays a game that involves extreme heat and terrible speed. To be competitive he must speak 300 words a minute, five words a second; he must explain away geo-political crises, solve projected regional famines, and remove the theoretical threat of global thermonuclear catastrophe. His is a game of timed argumentation. Richard Hobbes has five minutes to answer sixty separate arguments, to explain why he’s right, and to make them believe.

Richard has debated his entire life. He’s argued for dominion, for his right to matter, and to rule. In his senior year at U.C. Berkeley, at one of the nation’s top debate teams, Richard is a legend. But he wants more. He wants law school. At Harvard. He wants his debate partner’s girlfriend. Bareback. But most of all, he wants them to pay. And they will.