Apprentice Elegy

a literary-political reflection

Jacques-Louis David, Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801)

Hello friends,

In the wake of Vice President Harris’s galvanizing ascent, my mind has retreated just far enough from the precipice of sheer electoral anxiety to consider political thoughts of a more literary nature.

I’ve written previously about Donald Trump’s authorial tendencies and the authoritarian nature of writing fiction. The man scares me shitless, of course—but perhaps, as the author of a novel that reinterprets the myth of Narcissus, it’s inevitable I should also find him fascinating. I’m sickly artistically drawn to Trump as to a particularly grotesque neck tattoo. That viral post-assassination-attempt photo could have been composed by David or Delacroix! In the absence of Trump’s actual power—in a novel, for instance—he’d be immensely entertaining. The most unbelievable people make for the most believable characters.

Which is probably why he’s a minor one in my new novel, on which I’m now working through revisions with my agent. Meanwhile, who does the real Trump go and choose for his new running mate?

A memoirist.

I haven’t read Hillbilly Elegy; the wait for it from the library is now months long, and I refuse to support Vance in even the smallest way by buying it. Besides, a brief perusal of the competent, bootstrappy quotes on Goodreads reminds me why I never had the slightest inclination to read it previously:

Pajamas? Poor people don’t wear pajamas. We fall asleep in our underwear or blue jeans. To this day, I find the very notion of pajamas an unnecessary elite indulgence, like caviar or electric ice cube makers.

So this guy not only wants to force women to give birth, to end no-fault divorce even in cases of domestic violence—but for us to continue sharing these abusive beds in blue jeans? A rampant misogynist contra elite pajamas and caviar who has sold 3.6 million books . . . never has someone so evil struck me as so specifically unappealing.

I am not alone in my assessment (sup unmarried childless women with cats). Vance is wildly unpopular for a fresh Veep nominee. And I don’t think it’s just because of his dehumanizing agenda. It’s also because he’s out there beta-testing whether it is possible for an audience to die of second-hand embarrassment:

Which brings me to the only interesting thing about Vance, aside from the self-preserving interest inherent to fear. While most politicians (slash ghostwriters) write “books” in the technical sense, these efforts are nearly always a form of trailing capitalization on political fame, and often little more than protracted marketing materials. Much rarer is the actual writer turned politician (I can’t think of another at this level in the US, but if I’m missing some notable forerunner sound off in the comments).

More unusual still is that a writer-turned-politician would be a reactionary extremist—just statistically, given how left-leaning the publishing industry; how powerful women are in it and to it. Yes, Vance’s MAGA “sequel” represents an ideological shift, but not a demographic one. On a superficial-superficial level—alas, the one on which I fear most politics plays—it’s hard to imagine a book with greater tonal alignment to rural, white voters who feel left behind, lingering nostalgic pride intact. The title says it all.

But Vance’s tonal alignment with MAGA voters also puts him in sharp contrast to Trump himself, whose Versailles-vibes persist. Accordingly, I wonder if Trump’s new Apprentice could ever truly take the mantle. Vance seems just as power-hungry, but without any of Trump’s entertainment value or fictional-character appeal. He’s not a megalomaniac narcissist of anti-heroic proportions so much as just another opportunistic “Synergy Greg” with the banal moral flexibility to effectively contort himself for undeserved promotion.

It’s entirely possible I’m “putting hope above sense” in this prediction, but I can’t help but see Vance’s relentless non-fictionality as a liability for Trump. If he was falsely accused of fucking a couch, I feel like he’d just falsely embrace it— “well, it was a very beautiful Chesterfield,” etc. And it’s not just the memes. Vance’s earnestness also makes their political agenda and Project 2025 seem realer and scarier. How many moderate Republicans justified pocketbook votes for Trump in 2016 with some version of “he’s not actually going to do that, though”?

For all of Vance’s similarly self-serving drive, I don’t think he has the same imperviousness to the truth.

Thanks for reading,

ANJ