Content Warning: The novel harbors offensive ideas about gender and race. It uses dated language to describe people of color and assumes essential differences between men and women in its description of a utopian society. It describes a utopian society in which men hold all major leadership positions, reinforcing a patriarchal view of society. It also suggests that women are romantically interchangeable. It presents a utopian society that has a specific religious leaning and does not favor religious pluralism. It advocates for a utopian society that is patriarchal, misogynistic, trans-exclusive, racist, ableist, imperialistic, heteronormative and implicitly anti-gay, and classist. The novel advocates for a brand of nationalism. It contains references to death by suicide.

Julian West is a young man, 30-years-old, who was born in 1857. When the novel starts, he is a typical wealthy man in 1887; he is educated and refined but, because he has never had to work a day in his life, he lacks sympathy for those that do. He accepts things as they are and fears societal change. He writes off the suffering of the poor as an unfortunate reality in a cruel world. Meanwhile, everything about his life is seemingly perfect except that the labor strikes have delayed the construction of his new house, and he has insomnia.