The Last Days of George W. Bush: A Tale of Family Values
By Krandall Kraus
2006-11-08
Note: Krandall Kraus has published six books, including the Lambda Literary Award winner It’s Never About What It’s About, co-authored with his partner Paul Borja. He is the recipient of the 2006 Christopher Isherwood Fellowship in Fiction; his first novel, The President's Son, was a bestseller. A former consultant to the Office of the Vice President, his political thrillers are filled with White House insider details. Interestingly, many members of the current administration worked in The White House while he was there.
Begun in 2003, Last Days was written, Kraus says, “because I wanted to be rid of these people and the only way I could do it in a moral way was to make it happen in writing. I would certainly never hurt anyone. I went to school in Texas and hung out around Lyndon Johnson and John Connelly, so I’ve been exposed to politics all my adult life. Things are worse than people imagine. But I was stunned when everything I had written in 2004 about gay adoption started coming true.”
Kraus approached the Windy City Times with the idea of serializing the book when his publisher suddenly dropped it, fearing reprisals from the Bush administration. His response to that? “For God’s sake, it’s fiction. And this is America, land of the free. At least it used to be.”
This 44-part series began running in WCT Nov. 8. Readers can read all the installments to date at www.windycitymediagroup.com .
"From the journal of John “Jack” Quincy Adams, Chief Secret Service Special Agent in Charge, The White House. Code Name: One."
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=13146
My comment: Totally, read it, I've just finished Part 1-14, all that is up right now. It's certainly a very...interesting patriotic romance, told through the POV of 'One', an 'everyman' of sorts (what is the average anyhow?), who was brought into Washington after he risked his own life to save the senior Bush, and therefore, ironically, be in the position to assassinate the junior one, when he felt it was right. This tale is told through diaries written during his therapy with the psychiatrist who is trying to determine why he did what he did. I like Jack's sense of humour, and while I don't agree on his viewpoint (that while the war was a mess, Saddam should have been assassinated. I think, the removal of a head of state through foreign machinations will lead to war, and who would replace Saddam?), I can see where he's coming from, and I do feel that 'One' is a decent person overall.
I also like, how...while Bush wasn't a flattering figure in this story, that being the teenager who never got over daddy...he wasn't cardboard either, there is an internal logic.
2006-11-08
Note: Krandall Kraus has published six books, including the Lambda Literary Award winner It’s Never About What It’s About, co-authored with his partner Paul Borja. He is the recipient of the 2006 Christopher Isherwood Fellowship in Fiction; his first novel, The President's Son, was a bestseller. A former consultant to the Office of the Vice President, his political thrillers are filled with White House insider details. Interestingly, many members of the current administration worked in The White House while he was there.
Begun in 2003, Last Days was written, Kraus says, “because I wanted to be rid of these people and the only way I could do it in a moral way was to make it happen in writing. I would certainly never hurt anyone. I went to school in Texas and hung out around Lyndon Johnson and John Connelly, so I’ve been exposed to politics all my adult life. Things are worse than people imagine. But I was stunned when everything I had written in 2004 about gay adoption started coming true.”
Kraus approached the Windy City Times with the idea of serializing the book when his publisher suddenly dropped it, fearing reprisals from the Bush administration. His response to that? “For God’s sake, it’s fiction. And this is America, land of the free. At least it used to be.”
This 44-part series began running in WCT Nov. 8. Readers can read all the installments to date at www.windycitymediagroup.com .
"From the journal of John “Jack” Quincy Adams, Chief Secret Service Special Agent in Charge, The White House. Code Name: One."
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=13146
My comment: Totally, read it, I've just finished Part 1-14, all that is up right now. It's certainly a very...interesting patriotic romance, told through the POV of 'One', an 'everyman' of sorts (what is the average anyhow?), who was brought into Washington after he risked his own life to save the senior Bush, and therefore, ironically, be in the position to assassinate the junior one, when he felt it was right. This tale is told through diaries written during his therapy with the psychiatrist who is trying to determine why he did what he did. I like Jack's sense of humour, and while I don't agree on his viewpoint (that while the war was a mess, Saddam should have been assassinated. I think, the removal of a head of state through foreign machinations will lead to war, and who would replace Saddam?), I can see where he's coming from, and I do feel that 'One' is a decent person overall.
I also like, how...while Bush wasn't a flattering figure in this story, that being the teenager who never got over daddy...he wasn't cardboard either, there is an internal logic.