54

54 was written in three years (1999-2001) by the same collective of Italian authors that wrote the novel Q in the 1995-98 period.
The story of this group of writers/activists/pranksters is narrated in full details here (official website, "Wu Ming Foundation: Who We Are and What We Do").
54 was published in Italy in the springtime of 2002, and translated into several languages in the following years. At the time of this writing, it was in print in Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile and the United States.
According to the authors, they chose 1954 - twelve months at the height of the Cold War - as the novel’s historical backdrop because that year was full of crucial events that would shape the world to come. For instance, in 1954 American citizens witnessed the sudden downfall of senator Joe McCarthy, and the end of the witchhunt he had sparked back in 1950. At the same time, due to a stunning military defeat in Dien Bien Phu, Indochina, the French empire started to collapse. That rout triggered the US intervention in that area. Events would soon come to a head, and the Vietnam War broke out a few years later. Simultaneously, after only nine years of purgatory, West Germany was admitted in the Atlantic Pact. In the meantime, after nine years of Allied military occupation, the city of Trieste returned to Italy, although a big chunk of its province became Yugoslavian territory, which would turn Italy into one of the most important outposts in the Cold War and affect the country’s public life for forty years.
In 1954, the Italian state television began its broadcasts. And, of course, Cary Grant starred in Alfred Hitch’s To Catch a Thief [the director’s surname is truncated because the anti-obscenity filter reads its second half as a slang synonim for "male organ"]. It was during the filming on the French Riviera that Grace Kelly met Prince Rainier for the first time.
Curiously enough, the inclusion of Grant in the book was due to a mistake. In the Summer of 1999 Wu Ming 2, one of the five authors, was ransacking a public newspaper library in Bologna, in order to find stories, trivia and events that took place in 1954. While leafing through a collection of gossip mags, he bumped into a "Best Actor of 1953" poll among female readers. The winner was Gary Cooper. Wu Ming 2 noted it down for future reference, but he shortened the actor’s name to "C.G.". A few weeks later, during a brainstorming session, he found that hasty scrawl again, misread it for "C.G." and incorrectly recalled that the poll’s winner was Cary Grant. "Why don’t we put Cary Grant into the plot? Charming man, fascinating life, involved with the British intelligence during WW2... He was very popular in Italy to boot, readers of so-and-so magazine voted him Best Actor of 1953..." The other members of the band agreed and took to study Grant’s movies and bio. Only a few months later they found out that Gary Cooper was the real winner of the poll. By then, Cary Grant had become one of the main characters in this multi-layered novel. That is how Wu Ming 1 told the story in a long Cary-related interview.
It is impossible to write a comprehensive blurb for this book. Hundreds of characters, dozens of sub-plots, each sub-plot is constantly perturbed by unexpected twists and turns, one of the characters is a "living" (and thinking) TV set, one chapter is seen from the point of view of an antifascist homing pigeon etc. Certainly it is a novel it takes some patience to read. Some people loved it, other people found it annoying and expressed contempt for the authors. Most likely, the majority of people on the planet (6.5 billion human beings as of Saturday, February 25, 2006) will never read it.
It seems that American readers find 54 more difficult to read than European readers did. In 2006 the five authors speculated upon this and wrote: ’Maybe our books are too "provincial", crammed as they are with references to an Italian and pan-European background. Those references are easily understood in Latin America, because those peoples share many features with us, but they’re missed completely in the US. Maybe. This is just a conjecture."
However, an interesting self-definition of Wu Ming’s method of writing is likely to cast more light upon the issue: "We usually think of an historical period which seems fascinating to us, then we spend months watching microfilms, reading sources, doing research, writing down all kinds of stuff, then the brainstorm [begins] and it lasts several weeks. We have hallucinations, sort of. Historical research is like peyote to us. After we recover from all the shocks and flashes, we start to write" (from a 2003 interview).
Wu Ming’s books are marketed in the US as genre fiction (which they are, in a way, but what genre is that?). Up to three reviews contain the words "beach read". Maybe some of the  people who purchased Q or 54 had definite expectations, and felt betrayed when they saw the book going in other directions. Of course sunbathers may read those books on the beach, as well as in any other place they fancy, but when they open the pages, they’ll find out that they purchased novels of a visionary, hallucinogenic nature. Not everyone’s cup of tea.