The highly acclaimed author of Stop That Girl delivers a masterfully plotted debut novel--at once a mystery of identity, sly literary satire, and coming-of age story--capturing a young man's impossible and heroic first love.

Twenty-two-year-old MacGregor West, orphaned as a boy, is on a quest: to understand the circumstances of his mother's untimely death. On a foggy San Francisco evening, guided by an old stack of envelopes, Mac finds himself at the mansion of cultural icon Charles Ware, where he encounters the writer's beautiful and enigmatic daughter, Carolyn, trapped in a fold-up bed. Upon freeing her, Mac plunges headlong into the world of the eccentric Ware family and a love affair with a woman whose murky history may be closely linked to his own.

MacGregor Tells the World is a poignant and often hilarious ride through present-day San Francisco, a city brimming with memorable characters who help Mac discover just what story is his to...