July 14, 2022
7:00 p.m. EDT
264 Canal Street, Suite 3W
New York, New York 10013
“The propagandist is his own first customer.”
—Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny, State of Terror (2021).
As Trump rode his America First brand of combative isolationism to the White House, the idea that nationalism is on the rise became commonplace. Commentators expressing this sentiment pointed to the great fictions of our moment: the conspiratorial emanations of Q, fear-mongering around the foreign origins of peoples and pandemics, and dire warnings about the threat of international terrorism, to name a few. Yet American nationalism has always been stoked by the stories that self-declared patriots tell and have told about the country, particularly the narrative of the United States as a heroic savior. Tales that bolster this messiah complex appear in the news and in popular culture alike as potent forms of soft power, woven as much by fiction writers as political figureheads—and, sometimes, by the two working together.
Over the past four years, Bill and Hillary Clinton have joined bestselling authors to write political thrillers. In 2018’s The President Is Missing, authored by Bill and James Patterson, the titular commander in chief goes rogue to personally take on a cyberterrorist group, Sons of Jihad. Last year, the two collaborated again on The President’s Daughter, an unrelated followup in which a different president saves his daughter following her capture by, once again, terrorists. In State of Terror, also published in 2021 and cowritten by Hillary and Louise Penny, the secretary of state thwarts a Pakistani arms dealer’s quest for nuclear proliferation (while handling stand-ins for Putin and Trump). Following memoirs, Masterclass seminars, and repeated stints in public service, these novels represent yet another means by which that most (in)famous of public duos have pushed their conceptions of this country after a quarter century of omnipresence in American life, elevating their own heroic personas, declaiming their political opinions and agendas, and projecting a Clintonian vision of America as gallant and unstoppable global power.
For Executive Fiction, the cultural critics and writers Richard Beck, Ari M. Brostoff, and Sean McCann will evaluate the forms of politics—and literature—operating in these novels, and untangle the various kinds of influence that they assert. Each participant will present on one of the three books, bringing their specific expertise to bear on the magnetic popular influence of the Clintons, the cultural impact of the war on terror, and the figure of the president in literature. How does the form of the thriller work to augment the Clintons’ agendas, and vice versa? How has the story of America changed in the past thirty years, in each Clinton’s telling? What might Louise Penny’s foreign policy resemble? And what are James Patterson’s presidential chances?
Executive Fiction is free and will be livestreamed. RSVPing is not mandatory, but we encourage you to register in advance in order to receive updates on the event and the link to the livestream. The event is part of a series that concludes Unknown States, an issue devoted to the fictions that make up nations and nationalities. The series also includes First World Order, with Ilana Harris-Babou and Yasmina Price, organized with Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI); Empires in the Sky, with Atossa Araxia Abrahamian and Rana Dasgupta; and Stopping Time, with Lou Cornum, Raven Chacon, and Audra Simpson.
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