Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Get thee to a desk, Scooter

In an act of uncanny timing, earlier this week n+1 published on its Web site a smart piece devoted to a vexing and under-explored question: where are the Republican novelists?

Why uncanny? Why because I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted of perjury yesterday, he says, in case the only thing you read is Brainiac. And Scooter is a novelist! In other words, he's made stuff up before.

The n+1 piece by Benjamin Nugent, largely about the work of Mark Helprin, one of the few undisputed GOP fiction writers, is clever and incisive. First it draws authors in close to the GOP, pointing out the samenesses of today's American life:

literary writers like to bash effete chattering-class big-city Francophiles almost as much as the GOP does. We live in an age in which every American from Bakersfield to Nantucket likes lattes, has an idea for a psychological thriller, and knows that NBC is struggling to find a new ratings juggernaut, but hates latte-drinkers and Hollywood types.

The lattes are a nice touch. Moving on to address the lack of conservative scribes, Nugent posits that the project of fiction is rarely compatible with the optimism inherent in Reaganism and especially neoconservatism: "How many 19-year-olds start writing their first novels to show the world how it’s becoming a brighter place?"

P.S. I've always wondered whether Jim Lehrer, who manages to be a prolific novelist alongside his anchoring duties on PBS, is conservative. In fact, what I like about his stoical reporting and speech is that I've never detected a hint of bias. Does anyone know where he stands?

Posted by Evan Hughes at 09:31 AM

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