The angry author, a literary storm and 'one dead armadillo' By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles After the recent flurry of damning political memoirs, not to mention Michael Moore's box-office busting documentaryFahrenheit 9/11, the Bush administration might feel it has been dumped on quite enough for one election season. But the worst may be yet to come, in the unlikeliest of forms: a slim volume of fiction from the ordinarily mild-mannered minimalist Nicholson Baker. Mr Baker's new novel, Checkpoint, features two characters who spend much of its 115 pages discussing how to assassinate President George Bush. They don't actually do the deed, or even attempt it, but the book is - according to early snippets - replete with deep-seated anger and elegantly nasty epithets hurled at both the President and his cabinet. Mr Baker's publisher, Alfred Knopf, plans to release the book on 24 August, on the eve of the Republican National Convention in New York.
Who cares? It's a novel, right? Novels are fiction. Well, except for the wonderful "Left Behind" series.
Hmm, interesting - replete with deep seated anger and elegantly nasty epithets. It's gonna be a big seller. Looks like everybody is trying to make money out of Bush's failed presidency now.
This certainly proves the media's widespread liberal bias.... It's only a novel..Tasteless, perhaps, but a fictional work.....Why mix it up with Fahrenheit 9/11? Sometimes i wonder if people really watch what they criticize, or simply wait to see what their favorite political commentator/pundit has to say on it in order to form their 'own' opinion....
I don't want to read the book, but I am curious. Do the characters plan on lacing his pretzels with iocane powder, or do they sabotage the breaks on his bicycle?