Capturing the anxious, self-aware mood of young college grads in the aughts,  Private Citizens embraces the contradictions of our new century: call it a  loving satire. A gleefully rude comedy of manners.  The story’s four whip-smart  narrators-idealistic Cory, Internet-lurking Will, awkward Henrik, and vicious  Linda—are torn between fixing the world and cannibalizing it. In boisterous  prose that ricochets between humor and pain, the four estranged friends stagger  through the Bay Area's maze of tech startups, protestors, gentrifiers, karaoke  bars, house parties, and cultish self-help seminars, washing up in each other's  lives once again.