Published in 1983, becoming a cult classic (Madonna adored it and Larry David forced the Seinfeld writers to read it), The Harding Papers is one of the funniest, most provocative, and least politically-correct novels of recent decades. Impedimenta revives this queer, delirious, and grotesque comic gem, which is also, at its core, a merciless satire on American identity, academic imposture, and personal failure elevated to art. Elliot Weiner is brilliant, a PhD from Columbia, a Harvard graduate, a passionate Morris dancer, an expert on the much-forgotten President Warren Harding, and, above all, a mean, ridiculous, and desperate human being. After obtaining a research grant, he discovers that the key to his future academic glory lies in a trunk full of erotic letters from the twenty-ninth President of the United States.
