I was at a bookstore recently and, while I was browsing, I figured I'd take a look at their mystery section. Two of the bylines I noticed were two-time Georgia Governor nominee Stacey Abrams and former FBI director James Comey.
This has made me wonder. When did it first happen that a political thriller was written by an actual politician? From the 80s I remember Double Man, by Senators Gary Hart and William S. Cohen, making it at least technically bipartisan. And while I read it, I couldn't really tell you what it's about without looking it up.
Most politicians can't really stop running, stop stumping, even when there are no more offices for them to seek. That's a fatal flaw with this kind of book. But they do likely keep a certain number of ghostwriters employed.
2 comments:
I'm not sure about the word byline in this context. Had they written blurbs for mystery books? Maybe the two of them are considering a career in mystery fiction. Stacey might need to consider how she's going to support herself after her third loss in a gubernatorial race. Comey on the other hand might need something to occupy his time when he's in the penitentiary.
As you've mentioned it doesn't sound like a good book. For politicians to be successful as writers of political thrillers might mean paying more attention to what goes on in Congress - or the Senate. How is it they're all millionaires?
Attention seekers, the lot of them.
Oh, they were the credited authors, all right. It's hard to imagine taking a blurb written by them seriously. Not to say that they won't try contributing said blurbs. Abrams actually convinced the press a couple of times that she was the future of the Democratic Party, which suggests a gift for fiction, although I'm pretty sure someone else wrote the manuscript. Comey, by all recent evidence, is trying to dodge prison time on the basis of mental deficiency.
It might be fun to pretend for a little while that our leaders are Renaissance men and women who could as easily write great novels and compose piano sonatas, but reality will very quickly make itself felt. How are they all millionaires? Lobbyists, baby, lobbyists.
If they had any sense they'd get away from the spotlight.
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