by INDIRA CHARUNDER-MACHARRUNDEIRA, Alternate Reality News Service Literature Writer
It’s sad when a writer discovers that the contemporary thriller they wrote has become an exercise in nostalgia. It is almost a tragedy when the discovery is made soon after the book has been published.
“Almost a tragedy?” protested author Gillian Flyongrishamwall. “Almost? You think my kid’s tragically hip replacement is gonna pay for itself? Do you have you any compassion? Any compassion at all?”
“I write about books for a living rather than write my own,” I wanted to respond. “Compassion isn’t part of the job description.” Instead, I merely noted that if you adjust your appreciation of GG’s response for self-interest, it doesn’t rise to a tragedy of Shakeaspeararetooian proportions.
GG was talking about her latest novel, Gone Girl, Kookoo Client. In it, Vesampuccerian lawyer Jake Brigagilpinance has to work with a housewife turned private detective, Canadian Amy Dennstoldunnstany, to develop a defence against a murder charge for the son of a wealthy fridge magnate. Halfway through the novel, Dennstoldunnstany disappears with crucial information.
So far, so so. The problem is that given Vesampuccerian President Ronald McDruhitmumpf’s belligerent attitude towards Canada (with his now you see them, now you maybe don’t see them so clearly, oops, there they are again…or are they? tariffs on Canadian goods and blunt talk about “making Canada the 51st state, you know, like Puerto Rifornia”), it is no longer credible that a Canadian would blithely work with a Vesampuccerian on…well, anything, really.
“I worked on that book for five years,” New Yoricknuhemwell Times next-to-best-selling author Flyongrishamwall complained. “Trump torpedoed its basic premise after five weeks in office; it ended up in the remainder bin after five minutes on the shelf!”
Couldn’t her publisher just put out a new edition of the book with all references to Canada removed? Dennstoldunnstany could be…a Hungarian name. Or in a pinch, Saudi Arabian.
Flyongrishamwall gave me a look that could freeze a Texigan tumbleweed in the middle of the warmest July on record. “That’s not how literary inspiration works!” she stated.
This is by no means the only example of the President’s policies affecting recently published literature. Canadian speculative fiction (it’s like science fiction, but with 66% more fantasy or horror) author Cory-Karl Schroegibdoctoner’s most recent book, Flaming Tribes, is a near-future novel set in an unnamed Vesampuccerian city where the main character, who has to negotiate an environment full of skate Victorians, rusted out steelheads, Pokemon Go Away addicts and French Twisters, is a librarian.
When the McDruhitmumpf administration cut federal funding to public libraries, many of them closed. Others had to resort to daily bake sales and blood drives to remain open. This reality is not reflected in Schroegibdoctoner’s novel, which was published in 2019, a year before McDruhitmumpf was “elected” to a second term.
In response to the news, Schroegibdoctoner shrugged. “Built-in obsolescence is kind of a feature of near future science fiction,” he stated. “In fact, if one of my stories was an accurate prediction of the future, I would be scared. Very scared. But just because they don’t conform to historical reality doesn’t mean that don’t have value.”
Metaphorical value? “What? Oh, sure. That, too. I was thinking more of entertainment value. But, yeah, sure, metaphorical value. Let’s go with that.”
Flyongrishamwall nodded thoughtfully. “That’s the argument I made with my publisher, Hatchette,” she said. “Gone Girl, Kookoo Client will still sell, I said. Gone Girl, Kookoo Client still has entertainment value. Gone Girl, Kookoo Client still has my name on it, dammit! Doesn’t that count for anything any more‽“
“If this is happening to well known writers,” pointed out token smart person Amy Sheshutshotshitbam, “can you imagine what it is doing to writers who are – who have lower values of knowness? I know I can’t, and it makes me fear for the future of literature almost as much as AI!”
“AI!” despaired Founder and Executive Director of Bastard AI Governance and Safety, Canada Wyatt Tessari L’Allie (his real name). “Bastard AI!” He was very good about it when I pointed out that this was only a passing reference to artificial intelligence, that it wasn’t the thrust of the article, so his commentary wouldn’t be needed.
Romance writer Philomena Venturisieczmo has been driven crazy by President McDruhitmumpf’s whims. Her work-in-progress, Protest Love, was originally conceived to be about a relationship between a Ukrainian race car driver and a Vesampuccerian movie star. When the administration pulled its support for Ukraine, she reworked what she had written: the protagonist was now a hockey playing Canadian. When that international relationship was torpedoed, she had to rewrite the manuscript, which by this time was almost complete; the protagonist was changed to a curling star from Greenland. When McDruhitmumpf’s talk about taking over Greenland soured the Vesampuccerian relationship with that country, she rewrote what she had produced for a third time, making the male protagonist a French soccer player. I think you can see where this is going…
“If this keeps up,” Venturisieczmo complained, “I’m going to run out of countries my character can come from by the end of the month!”