Exceptionalism gives us the idea that we, both individually and as a collective, operate above the rules due to our extraordinary virtues. Americans have supposedly been called from beyond the stars to exert our honor on the world around us, but does this grandiose self-assessment blind us to our potentially fatal flaws? The Shining City on the Hill is contemporary fiction at its most compelling, a novel about the paragon of civilization, a free society open to all who wish to do good ... at least this is what they believed ... The powerful echoes of a city groaning under its own weight ring through the lives of a dozen troubled Texans. Over the course of several sweltering August days, the burnouts, undocumented immigrants, policemen and families cross paths, never realizing that profound suffering unites them all in unexpected ways.