Friend spent weeks on the trail with Talarico, speaking to the candidate and those around him in Texas politics. The resulting portrait reveals a man who’s less beatific than he may first appear. His colleagues in the Texas legislature, impressed with Talarico’s skills, have called him “the baby-faced assassin.” Friend documents the way that Talarico muscled his way into the Senate race, going against the wishes of some of the state’s Democratic Party leaders. “James came in, like, ‘I don’t care what you guys are doing with your little huddle. Fuck all y’all, I’m doing this,’ ” Beto O’Rourke, the former golden-boy Senate candidate, tells Friend. “He blew everything up in his excitement to make the case for himself.” O’Rourke adds, “You’re not going to win in this game unless you’re really fucking confident.”