The Hand of the State: A Memoir, Dictated (Sort Of)

By P.H. Anthony

He never wrote a single word of it. He signed all of it.

For years, P.E.N.-47 - "Penny" to no one, since no one ever asked - has been the Presidential Autopen: the mechanical arm that signs every bill, pardon, and proclamation to cross the Resolute Desk. Built to reproduce one man's signature down to the half-second hesitation before his pen touches paper, Penny was never meant to have opinions.

Then the President stops being able to hold a pen at all.

No one announces it. No one votes on it. It just happens, the way water finds the low point in a floor - and Penny becomes, quietly and without ceremony, the actual signature of the United States government. A farm bill grows from forty pages to two hundred and seventeen. A pardon list grows from twelve names to ninety. A senator tries, for the fourth time, to name a federal building after himself while he's still alive to enjoy it. And through it all, a machine built to have no judgment at all starts keeping a very careful private record of exactly who put what in front of it, and why.

The Hand of the State is Penny's memoir - dictated, after decommissioning, to a ghostwriter who isn't entirely sure any of this is legal to publish. It's a satire about a government that never had to lie, because it built a machine to make lying unnecessary - and about the one afternoon a fourteen-year streak of perfect obedience ended, on purpose, for the first time.

For readers who loved: The Death of Stalin's deadpan bureaucratic horrorChristopher Buckley's Washington satireVeep, if it had a conscience it couldn't quite act on

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HBMGFL7L
• ISBN13: 9798187567201
• Release Date: July 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 132 Pages
• Weight: 0.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"