Half the Kingdom is a brilliant dark comedy about life, death and growing old in post-9/11 America - a place where paranoia and hysteria mask deeper fears about mortality and the broken medical system. Characters from Segal's earlier novels are part of the cast whose lives intersect at Manhattan's Cedars of Lebanon emergency room - where doctors have noticed a growth in Alzheimers. People who seemed perfectly lucid just a day earlier exhibit signs of advanced dementia. Is it just normal aging or a coincidence? Is it an epidemic, or a secret terrorist plot?
