Washington, October 21, 1967. A sea of protesters, estimated by some at 20,000 and by others at 200,000 (depending on the newspaper they read), demand an end to the war in Vietnam, while federal police and armed soldiers await them at the steps of the Pentagon with hostile intentions. Among the protesters is a writer named Norman Mailer. His unique participation in the demonstration, as well as his insightful observations, will give birth to a classic work that challenges the logic of traditional reporting. Intellectuals and hippies, police officers and clerics, poets and military policemen become the heroes of a book that describes the events with the technique of a novel, in order to better convey the truth. This narrative, which treats "history as a novel and the novel as history," was awarded the two highest honors in the United States: the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.