Yoland Fuchs believes in America. America made her fortune. America made her rice pudding empire.

Yoland seeks to expand Pud, her Pittsburgh-based rice pudding corporation, to China.

Yoland's intrigues aim to use her political machine, United States of Alleghenia, to harness the production of rice and high-fructose corn syrup.

Mandarine is a dark-humoured political novel, exploring American exceptionalism through the prism of pudding.