A Time to Vomit
Matt Welch | October 26, 2005, 2:37pm
So there's a new Beltway novel out about a feisty little Blue-state Senatress who courageously opposes a Republican president's nomination of an underqualified woman to the Supreme Court. And you'll never guess who co-wrote it -- Botoxed pepperpot Barbara Boxer! The L.A. Times description sounds gruesome:
In "A Time to Run," the main characters from the reigning "blue states" -- Josh from California and Ellen from equally reassuring New York -- are liberal, altruistic, sane. Their affluent families are caring and sharing.
Their red state-born buddy, Greg, is the son of an emotionally abusive Ohio hardware seller former Marine who lost his favorite son in Vietnam. The red states that Greg heads to after graduation are interchangeably dull Siberias where Greg hangs out with the menfolk, bonding over beer, football and hunting.
Josh and Ellen become Left Coast do-gooders. Greg becomes a sociopathic neoconservative journalist, the go-to guy for character assassinations conjured by a right-wing California senator. Boxer said that although she didn't intend for the characters to represent the American political equation, "I hope people will understand the issues I raise about why people are blue or red or purple."
Her literary intrigues are not all political: There's also some bodice-ripping, with a love triangle between Greg, Ellen and Josh, and physical congress, tastefully suggested by euphemisms in which bodies "mesh."
Ted Price | October 26, 2005, 10:07pm | #
My brother sent this review from Amazon to me .... HIL-LARIOUS ... p.s. I have been living in the anarcho-syndicalism state of California for 3 weeks and all ready I want to exterminate half the populace and 100% of the body politic.
Here's a review posted on Amazon:
The very existence of this book answers a lot of questions about the state of California politics, October 26, 2005 Reviewer: Shaun Mason (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
I've exchanged e-mail with Senator Boxer over everal issues in the time she's been my senator. Lauded her tough questioning of Condi in the Senate, blasted her for siding with Ahhhhhnold on gay marriage (along with Diane Feinstein). Many Californians were mystified by the ridiculous circus our home state political situation has become, recalling an okay governer and electing an a-hole action movie "actor" to the office. We all wondered "where are our Democratic leaders when we need them? Where is a voice who will stand up and say "this is just crazy." We wondered where our leaders were who would say "Do not invade
Iraq, this is a bad, destructive idea." At least we now know
the answer for Senator Boxer, she was writing a self-
serving, nacissistic novel that I guess reimagines a fantasy
life for herself. While an illegal, immoral war rages on,
the budget of our state goes down the toilet, our state
education goes to hell, and the democratic party lies in
disarray, Boxer was writing a f***ing novel. This is good to
know. In the L.A. Times she called herself "prescient"
because the novel predicts a female conservative candidate
for the supreme court. I have some prescient information for
Senator Boxer: enjoy the next three years in the senate,
because they will be your last. I'm a lifelong democrat who
has voted for you since 1993, and that won't happen again
either. I urge all Californians to oppose any sitting
senator who has time to write a novel, regardless of party.
I've never been so embarrassed to have voted for someone.
Unless Boxer wants to admit she didn't actually write any of
it, and that she merely gave ideas to her cowriter, who did
the work, takes her name off it, gives the advance back and
gets back to work, I urge California Democrats to oppose
this woman's future political career. We live in frightening
times in which right-wing christian fascists threaten our
freedoms, and oligarchs rule the country. We needed Barbara
Boxer to keep her eye on the ball, not curl up on airplanes
with her iBook writing a trashy novel about herself. Damn I
feel betrayed as a voter. I urge Californians not to buy
this book and rethink their support of Senator Boxer.
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