Trump Fiction:Essays on Donald Trump in Literature, Film, and Television examines depictions of Donald Trump and his fictional avatars in literature, film, and television, including works that took up the subject of Trump before his successful presidential campaign (in terms that often uncannily prefigure his presidency) as well as those that have appeared since he took office. Covering a range of texts and approaches, the essays in this collection analyze the place Trump has assumed in literary and popular culture. By investigating how authors including Bret Easton Ellis, Amy Waldman, Thomas Pynchon, Howard Jacobson, Mark Doten, Olivia Laing, and Salman Rushdie, along with films and television programs like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Sesame Street, Sex and the City, Two Weeks Notice, Our Cartoon President, and Pose have approached and shaped the discourse surrounding Trump, the contributors collectively demonstrate the ways these cultural artifacts serve as sites through which the culture both resists and abets Trump and his rise to power.
Stephen Hock is associate professor of English at Virginia Wesleyan University.
Introduction: Reading Trump Stephen Hock Part I: The Cultural Prehistory of President Trump Chapter One: A Truly "Free" Psychopathology: Notes on Trumpspace David Markus Chapter Two: Trump as "Daddy": American Psycho and Hero Worship in the Neoliberal Era Caitlin R. Duffy Chapter Three: Nation Surface Mirror Psycho: A Fantasy of Coherence Clinton J. Craig Chapter Four: "Is That Donald Trump's Car?": On the Trail of the Original American Psycho William Magrino Chapter Five: Memorializing the Future of Donald Trump in Amy Waldman's The Submission Stephen Hock Chapter Six: The Deep Web of Conspiracies: Under the Shadow of Trump Tower in Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge Joseph M. Conte Chapter Seven: From Faithful Readers to Fake News: Thomas Pynchon, Trump, and the Return of the Postmodern William G. Welty Chapter Eight: Trump Traces: Examining Donald Trump's Film and Television Cameos (1990-2004) Ashleigh Hardin Chapter Nine: Entitlement and Wealth: The Whiteness of Donald Trump Peter Kragh Jensen Chapter Ten: Trump for Kids: Can You Tell Us How to Get a Grump off Sesame Street? Susan Gilmore Part II: Trumpocalypse Now Chapter Eleven: Howard Jacobson's Pussy and the Literary Hot Take Tim Lanzendoerfer Chapter Twelve: "Terminal Stupidity": Graft Zeppelin and Trump Sky Alpha Bruce Krajewski Chapter Thirteen: Our Cartoon President and the Politics of Laughter Steven Rosendale and Laura Gray-Rosendale Chapter Fourteen: "Nobody Wants to See That Fuckhead": Ball Culture and Donald Trump in FX's Pose Meredith James Chapter Fifteen: Exhausting the Present: Twitter, Trump, and Engagement Fatigue in Olivia Laing's Crudo Shannon Finck Chapter Sixteen: "Be a Little Genrequeer": Rushdie's The Golden House in the Age of Post-Truth Jaclyn Partyka
In an era dominated by fake news and concerns regarding the boundaries between truth and fiction, this book offers an early intervention in the emerging field of Trump studies. It lays down some key markers in debates about the cultural and political origins and implications of the current administration on the way we make, relate to, and share representations today. -- Katy Shaw, Northumbria University A masterful example of contemporary cultural studies, Trump Fiction assembles an array of insightful scholars working at the cutting edge of their fields to offer timely analyses of the social, cultural, and political phenomenon of Trumpism. By examining Trump's presence in a dizzying array of cultural artifacts from the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, the collection offers an invaluable historicization of the present. It also lays crucial groundwork for emerging conversations about the defining cultural forms of the present by exploring contemporary cultural responses to Trump's candidacy and presidency. Filled with smart observations and juicy tidbits, these essays promise to engage, inform, and ultimately reshape the way we understand where we've been and where we're going. -- Mitchum Huehls, University of California, Los Angeles Trump Fiction explores the imagined Trump-the Trump writers represent in fiction and poetry, the Trump we imagine behind his desk in the Oval Office and in front of the TV, phone in hand, and perhaps the biggest fiction of all, the Trump imagined by Trump himself. By reading these fictions in the context of the larger historical trends that produced the phenomenon and figure of Trump, the essays in Trump Fiction do the important work of helping us understand not only where our 45th president came from but where he is taking us. The chances for a healthier post-#45 US depend on the degree to which we are able to heed the warnings produced by essential books like Trump Fiction. -- Samuel Cohen, University of Missouri
