A sometimes-funny but uninventive sendup of the current president of the United States.
A satirical depiction of President Donald Trump’s personal correspondence.
Debut author Hess, a pseudonymous New York City–based journalist, says in a fictional introduction that he was anonymously contacted last year, via email, by someone who claimed to possess a storehouse of Trump’s personal letters—all written in 2018—and was willing to share them. The bulk of the book is an assemblage of these fanciful missives—38 in all—mostly written to people who’ve figured prominently in the drama of Trump’s tenure. Hess’ version of Trump bitterly attacks lawyer Michael Cohen, adult-film actor Stormy Daniels, and comedian “Rosanne” [sic] Barr and mercilessly taunts Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and President Emmanuel Macron of France, whom he calls a “crybaby.” He also gushes fawningly about his “buddy,” Russian President Vladimir Putin. Hess addresses Trump’s notorious complaints about “fake news,” his contention that climate change is a hoax, and the threat that he asserts that Mexican immigrants pose to the nation. Some of the epistles have a more personal tone—one, written to Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, is unsettlingly creepy. The author is at his best when he departs from the predictable highlights of the daily news cycle, as when he has Trump counsel Allah: “I think if you want to surpass the Christian God in a jiffy, you should have a daughter as soon as possible.” Also, he adeptly captures the idiosyncrasies of Trump’s speech as well as his relentless penchant for self-aggrandizement. In one of the book’s funniest moments, the president boasts of his popularity in a note to God, wondering if “wiping two or three countries off the face of this earth” would cement his own immortality. Hess’ irreverent work refreshingly makes light of a presidency that’s long been a tinderbox of angry contention. However, for the most part, he aims for obvious jokes and well-worn punchlines. This familiarity transforms into tedium very quickly, as the author seems more interested in heaping scorn on Trump than he is in earning laughs from readers.
A sometimes-funny but uninventive sendup of the current president of the United States.Pub Date: Jan. 2, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-9768354-5-5
Page Count: 130
Publisher: Irokopost Books
Review Posted Online: Jan. 8, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
Britisher Swift's sixth novel (Ever After, 1992 etc.) and fourth to appear here is a slow-to-start but then captivating tale of English working-class families in the four decades following WW II. When Jack Dodds dies suddenly of cancer after years of running a butcher shop in London, he leaves a strange request—namely, that his ashes be scattered off Margate pier into the sea. And who could better be suited to fulfill this wish than his three oldest drinking buddies—insurance man Ray, vegetable seller Lenny, and undertaker Vic, all of whom, like Jack himself, fought also as soldiers or sailors in the long-ago world war. Swift's narrative start, with its potential for the melodramatic, is developed instead with an economy, heart, and eye that release (through the characters' own voices, one after another) the story's humanity and depth instead of its schmaltz. The jokes may be weak and self- conscious when the three old friends meet at their local pub in the company of the urn holding Jack's ashes; but once the group gets on the road, in an expensive car driven by Jack's adoptive son, Vince, the story starts gradually to move forward, cohere, and deepen. The reader learns in time why it is that no wife comes along, why three marriages out of three broke apart, and why Vince always hated his stepfather Jack and still does—or so he thinks. There will be stories of innocent youth, suffering wives, early loves, lost daughters, secret affairs, and old antagonisms—including a fistfight over the dead on an English hilltop, and a strewing of Jack's ashes into roiling seawaves that will draw up feelings perhaps unexpectedly strong. Without affectation, Swift listens closely to the lives that are his subject and creates a songbook of voices part lyric, part epic, part working-class social realism—with, in all, the ring to it of the honest, human, and true.
Pub Date: April 5, 1996
ISBN: 0-679-41224-7
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1996
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