I’m a big fan of Ben Fountain’s novel Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which was a political satire that understood exactly what it was targeting and how to target it for maximum efficacy. So I’m immensely disappointed to report that Fountain’s newest novel, Rasputin Swims the Potomac, is maybe the worst political satire I’ve ever read—and I’ve read John Lithgow’s anti-Trump poetry.
This sputtering cough of a novel is about the Trump administration. Many of the names of principals including Elon Musk are tossed into the narrative unchanged, but Trump himself is presented in the prose with a censor bar (“*****,” or “bleep” in the audio version) in place of his name. But the loping cadence and psychological hangups are clearly, unmistakably Trump, so the name gimmick feels too cute by half.
The premise is that Trump becomes intertwined with a professional wrestler who is mentioned as a VP pick or perhaps a potential opponent for Trump’s fourth presidential campaign for his third term. And I guess the joke is that only a professional wrestler can beat Trump at his own game? Except the wrestler also believes he’s a reincarnation of Rasputin and he talks in a Russian accent. And there’s a former country star in there, and a Black reporter named Clarence Thomas (no relation,) and some other stuff. But it just kind of thrashes around for a while until it finally ends in the middle of nowhere, and it ultimately feels so impotent and pissy.
Maybe the only other political novel that’s disappointed me this much in my lifetime is Nicholson Baker’s Checkpoint, which was a furious little novel about two guys having a conversation about whether it would be a good and moral idea to assassinate George W. Bush. That book similarly sputtered, feeling powerless and lost. It hasn’t been mentioned by anyone in decades, and rightfully so. I suspect Rasputin Swims the Potomac will meet a similar fate.
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