By now you’ve probably heard of Christian Nation, a new novel out this summer from W. W. Norton that depicts a world where Sarah Palin’s president: Martial law has been declared, Evangelical Christians have launched their secret plans to control American society, and the country’s become a theocracy, and the only people standing in their way are the protagonist, a New York corporate lawyer who does good by “mobilizing capital” for infrastructure and resource-extraction projects in ”the poorest countries on earth,” while keeping the Chinese out, for a modest-sounding fee; and his gay techie Indian-American friend, Sanjay.
The book is by Frederic Rich, a . . . New York corporate lawyer who helps mobilize capital for the poorest countries on Earth while keeping the Chinese out (by engaging ExxonMobil instead). The prose, which you can sample in this excerpt at Salon, is less than graceful, but you could forgive him since it’s his first novel. Yet it’s not his first book, according to Amazon:
You may have been thinking that Rich is off his rocker and understands next to nothing about the people he likes to think are plotting to turn America into a trinitarian Iran, but you probably didn’t know he’s observed American society from the perch of Princeton’s Ivy eating club, and knows the place well enough to write up a history of its first hundred years (which included graduating Hobey Baker, Bill Ford, and any number of Rockefellers and Mellons). So if you’re tempted to snicker when supporting character Sanjay gives a lecture in the Tishman Auditoriam at Manhattan’s New School about what Evangelicals really plan for this country — which stuns the audience with its perspicaciousness — just remember, the author has that life experience to draw on.
As to the profile of who’s snapping up Christian Nation, there really are no words:
