Prisoner's Dilemma is a 1988 novel by American author Richard Powers. It is the story of a dysfunctional family living in DeKalb County, Illinois. The novel explores the impact of history on contemporary life. The novel centres on the father of the family, Eddie Hobson, who is trying to find a solution to the "prisoner's dilemma" posed by mathematicians at the RAND Corporation. He wishes to solve the dilemma through writing an alternate reality, explaining how human beings could live together peacefully. To do this, he uses many elements from real life twisted slightly.

Non-fiction portrayed in the novel

Many of these events are portrayed differently. For example, Disney is portrayed as having Japanese ancestry, when he did not.