pallin

Outrageous farce, ludicrous satire and preposterous exaggeration embellish features of contemporary America as they collide in The Fall of Donnald Trummp etc: there are the white supremacists, the unemployed youth, the anorexic-inducing world of high fashion, gun violence, the BLM Movement, the glitzy show business nature of the electoral process and, yes, the genius of America in its ability to remake itself.

The setting: Nonagenarian Sophia Henckel has chosen victims of neglect and violence as tenants of the Washington Heights apartment block she owns: a gathering of the child-like and the innocent and the downright weird, some believe that one of their number, an elderly man who goes by the name of the deceased comedian, Jimmy Durante, will be chosen as president at the election in just over three months’ time.

Meanwhile another of Sophia Henckel’s residents - Tim, a young, naïve tenant who has autism and who happens to be a gaming wizard - is, unbeknownst to him, actually adopted and promoted as a presidential candidate by the exasperated and angry youth of the nation. They believe that reducing the gap between rich and poor, as well as enacting gun control, can only be achieved if, as they repeatedly say:

＂one of the forgotten governs for the forgotten.＂

White supremacists (who spend much of their time immersed in the gaming world), mistakenly seeing Tim as one of their own, also support the nation-wide campaign by America’s youth to have Tim elected. It is the alt-rights’ way of ridiculing the country which they believe has failed them.

Irreverent, absurd, tragic and comic, The Fall of Donnald Trummp etc is a story which conveys, at its heart, a deadly serious and melancholic longing to rekindle an America which has betrayed its own ideals.

It’s a bitter and, at times, hilarious novel which some will find shocking, while others will find it a scream.