Remember Ralph Reed, shameless leader of ’90s boy band “the Christian Coalition” and smooth-faced huckster for Casino Jesus? Your book reviewer doesn’t spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about Ralph Reed, but he occasionally wonders, “How does Ralph Reed spend his time when he’s not manufacturing rube hysteria and gobbling up Jack Abramoff lobbying fees to fund his large tacky house in the Atlanta suburbs? Really, what are his hobbies?” Book scientists can now confirm he “writes” novels. Who knew?!
Reed just dropped a hot new pile of slash fiction called The Confirmation. When your reviewer first saw the title, he expected a comic murder mystery set in an Assembly of God confirmation class, with comical down-home dialogue along the lines of, “Why ain’t Pastor Slaughter got a head no more? Looks like the Lord needs tah provide uh private detective!” Alas for the universe, it turns out The Confirmation is a roman-à-clef about Latinos on the Supreme Court and Iranian nukes. And Somali pirates. And sinister ships carrying Iraqi “yellow cake” across the sea. And feminists being all angry about some Catholic Mexican on the Supreme Court. And a horny Democratic senator who regularly mounts young interns and staffers. And a hot leader of Israel’s Likud Party. All of human life, basically.
At the beginning of the story, we meet newly-elected president “Bob Long,” which when translated into Kenyan means “Barack Obama.” NO JUST KIDDING, Bob Long is white. He was governor of California, and he’s recently been elected as an independent after losing the Democratic nomination; the American people were tired of “partisan bickering,” or something. Long is well known for changing his position on abortion, from pro-choice to pro-life. Hmm, how PROVOCATIVE, Ralph Reed! We should thank Money Jesus for Ralph Reed, who gives us so much to think about ….
Early in the book, an ancient liberal member of the Supreme Court drops dead, and President Long wonders who should replace him.
Why not Marco Diaz, a Latino who happens to be a member of fashionable Catholic self-mutilation club Opus Dei? Marco is strongly opposed to abortion, and this really gets the womenfolk riled up. Before long the Demoncrats are conspiring against him. The main villain among the anti-Diaz forces is a senator named Joe Penneymounter (haha, mounter of Penney?), who is by far your reviewer’s favorite character. Even though Penneymounter is a lecherous scumbag, he’s a million times more vivid than President Long (who’s nothing more than a cipher) and prospective Supreme Court feller Diaz (who’s nothing more than mouthpiece for Awesome Wingnut Ideas).
Penneymounter tries hard to seduce his female aides. Here he is trying to woo a lady named Christy Love:
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Christy,” said Penneymounter. He moved in closer, their bodies brushing. “I appreciate fine things. Good wine, art, intelligent conversation, a classy lady,” he said, his breath against her cheek. “I’d like to show you that other side of me.”
“Senator,” said Christy, her posture stiffening. “I don’t play in someone else’s sandbox.”
What?
Anyway, Penneymounter and the Democrats try to frame Marco Diaz (President Long’s nominee to the Supreme Court, in case we forgot) as a hypocrite who actually loves abortion.
The nominee’s ex-girlfriend is recruited to testify before the Senate about this one time Diaz allegedly forced her to get an abortion. But she winds up dead in a hotel room. Overdose. OR IS IT?
Meanwhile, Marco’s pregnant wife Frida is in the hospital. The slur campaign against her husband eventually stresses her out so much that she has a miscarriage. There’s a truly ghoulish scene where Marco and his wife talk about how Democrats have, in effect, killed their child. Or as Marco says:
“They took my daughter from me. I’m going to spend the next forty years on that court paying them back.”
Get ‘em, dude!
Oh God, and there’s so much else. The most interesting thing about this book might be the fact that Ralph Reed is downright obsessive about clothes and jewelry:
The president-elect stared into the mirror and struggled to tie the knot in his two-thousand-dollar silver Brioni tie ….
As usual, Felicity looked like a million bucks. She wore a sleeveless teal, turtleneck, ribbed sweater; black pants with aqua threading that made her look even taller than her five feet, eight inches, black zippered Dior heels; and a stunning five-carat David Yurman black onyx and diamond necklace with matching earrings and popcorn bracelet ….
A fire-engine-red Chanel dress ….
She wore a black contrast jacket with white boot-cut jeans and black-toed patent leather pumps.
And much more in that fashionista vein.
Another virtue of Ralph Reed’s writing: He has no time for glib and easy clichés! Here he is describing the habits of “attractive Likud candidate” Hannah Shoval during a visit to the White House:
Sipping intermittently from a bowl of matzo ball soup, she spoke in crisp paragraphs ….
Is there really anything else you need to know about Ms. Shoval?
The sub-plot of this rambling thing involves the Iranians getting the Bomb from Somali pirates (who in turn get it from an Iraqi container ship carrying “yellow cake” uranium, just like in pretend recent history), so you can imagine President Long has a lot to deal with. Your reviewer’s favorite passage in all the book has to do with Waziristan, though:
It was just after two in the morning when an unmanned, remote-controlled Predator drone dropped out of the clouds and floated above a safe house on the outskirts of Makeen …. The drone launched two laser-guided Hellfire missiles, lighting up the sky. They streaked to the target at a thousand miles an hour and exploded in a pillar of fire and smoke. Inside the house were several militants and family members, known associates of Rassem el Zafarshan, the mastermind behind the assassination of Vice President Harrison Flaherty [reviewer’s note: this was apparently an event in an earlier Reed novel called Dark Horse]. Everyone in the hut was killed instantly.
But Zafarshan gets away, presumably to meet with Somali pirates and Iranian nuclear scientists.
So there you have it, sort of (your reviewer can only do so much justice to such a sprawling and ambitious novel). Between Christy Love, Hannah Shoval, and the Predator drone tableau, The Confirmation is the most titillating book of 2010.
The Confirmation by Ralph Reed, Fidelis Books, 408 pages, $11.51.
Have any ideas for politics-related tales of the uncanny and macabre? Email them to greer.mansfield@gmail.com for the Wonkette World o’ Books Halloween Edition!
{ 74 comments }
Stylistically, Reed is influenced by the more nuanced passages of a Dan Brown. And his dialogue owes a great deal to the screenplay of "Animal House", e.g.: "Mahnd if we dance wif yo' dates?". Outstanding. A modern day Dos Passos.
If Dos Passos' newsreels were old Focus on the Family shows.
"I'll have a double rock and rye, and seven Carlings for my friends."
The black man stared at Boon, with reparations in his eyes, and begrudgingly served him alcohol, although his seething black resentment nearly burst from his bulging eyes and his broad, flat nose.
"If I were you I'd be-"
"Leaving. What a good idea."
"The Negros took our dates!"
Holy crap! He named a character in homage to a feisty, lady-cop from seventies TV? Penneymounter? President Long? Did he use a porn name generator for ALL his characters? Is there a way to get this masterpiece without putting money in Reed's pocket?
I think it's posted in it's entirety right here.
Check your local library. If they have the book, steal it. You get the book without putting money in Reed's pocket and the library no longer is saddled with such garbage. Win-win.
Cool. I generally enjoy science fiction.
Streaking through the sky? Lots of label referencia? Calling straight sex sandboxing? I see a big flower on my gayday screen! Reed know the Paladino clan?
Crisp paragraphs? Matzo ball soup? Is there a jew joke in there I haven't heard?
Some stories just seem to write themselves. All Reed needed to contribute was his corny, awkward way of dealing with sexual situations, and his eye for fashion details. Oh yes, and making sure every h-e-double hockey sticks in the dialogue got converted to "heck." YOU CAN'T TRUST A GODLESS EDITOR TO DO IT.
Ralph Reed looks like a gay and evil Porky Pig.
I hear it's now in it's third printing. The first two were smudged.
I cannot believe you read that book, also. Wow.
It took heroic levels of intestinal fortitude to be sure.
Sex in political novels always sounds like it was written by someone who's never had any. Could it be….
If he HAS had sex, it involved a) an underaged male, and/or b) Cool Whip and/or c) diapers and/or d) a chicken.
You have my sympathies.
I'd rather read DaVinky Kod which I stopped reading it after a mere 10 pages of awful writing even I could spot with my semi-illiterate engineer edumakashun.
But which characters got left behind????
Only the author.
The whole hyperfocus on the clothing felt like a passage in American Psycho.
Sabrina, don't just stare at it, eat it. But I also think Phil Collins works best within the confines of the group, than as a solo artist, and I stress the word artist. This is Sussudio, a great, great song, a personal favorite.
Ha, this made me think the exact same thing! Only thing is that this time that the author is most likely doing it totally unselfconsciously, which should scare anyone who is within striking distance of Ralph Reed.
Shit is released in hardback for eleven bucks? Did they secure a lien on his mansion to recover the advance if they don't break even?
In 90 days. The Dollar Store. By the pallet.
Are Reed's chapters kept nice and short in length? If I go on readin' for too long in one spell, I gets all tuckered out. Heaven sakes, you gotta give us a place to stop, right?
Here's the tried and true formula for writing bestselling conservative political fiction: take all the recent scandals involving GOP politicians –anonymous gay sex in airport bathrooms, phone sex with male interns, nights of diaper fueled passion with cheap Lousiana hookers, $100k payoff's to your mistress' husband— but instead of Republicans have it be the Democrats doing it.
Conservative political fiction is basically a subgenre of alternate history fantasy but instead of "What would have happened if the South had won the war?" what you've got is: "What would it look like if the Democrats were the lecherous scumbags?"
You've broken the code! Now I shall become a bestselling conservative political fiction writer. Only I need a good pen name – no way would I want to actually be associated with such dreck.
In the 80s, it was killing Commies and reciting passages straight from US Defense Company literature (hey, I liked that…)
In the 90s it was killing Nazi Commies and reciting passages straight from the Heritage Foundation literature (yeah, I read that too.)
In the 00s, it was killing Nazi Muslins and reciting passages from Bernard Lewis or Sam Huntington.
May I suggest "Bob Long"?
Pretty much.
Do you know how much I hate the "What If" style of SF? More than words.
Harry Turtledove to the red courtesy phone . . . .
I'm going to write and alternate history SCI-Fi novel in which you love alternate history SCI-Fi, Manchu. In fact, that will be the premise.
"A fire-engine-red Chanel dress"
Yes, I'm quite sure that's how Chanel markets the dress too. "Fire Engine: drive your six-year old wild."
And now we know who the toughest literature critic on teh wonkette is.
Oh bite me, it's been a long day. I've already made a "Fox News ladies have ding-dongs" joke, what more do you want from me? I'm not a machine.
Or your Dalmation, if you roll all Zooskool like Snowbilly.
Yea, but you have to admit that the whole fashionista excerpt is the gayest thing in the history of gay.
Exactly. Was the colored fop from "The Real Housewives of Atlanta" hired as a consultant? If not, and this was all Ralphie-Boy, well as Marco Diaz might say : "Caso Cerrado."
Isn't Ralph one of the closet cases? Or am I thinking of one of the dozens of others?
A good editor would have suggested that substituting the word nipples for posture in the cited passage would have been far more suggestive.
Also, as anyone who actually knows Israelis and Jews knows, the last thing Israelis would be seen eating in public is "Jewish food".
"…unmanned, remote-controlled Predator drone…"
unmanned = drone
remote controlled = drone
drone = drone
Why say it once when you can say it three times? Who does this gay-face perv think he is, Don De Lillo?
If you start on that, you have to mention that the Predator carries only one Hellfire missile, that Iraq had no yellowcake, that even if they did, it would take huge amounts of equipment and years of refining to build a bomb, etc — even the excerpts are so factually challenged that it seems like a lost cause correcting them. Kinda like the author's entire career.
Unmanned, remote-controlled Predator drones are purchased from the Department of Redundancy Department.
Seeking classy lady in sleeveless teal, turtleneck, ribbed sweater; black pants with aqua threading for companionship and water sports. Please reply in confidence to x111e7thst care of wonkette.com
I can imagine Ralph Reed sitting at a computer writing this shit — in a Victoria's Secret support bra, pink silk panties, a white frock open to reveal his pearl necklace against his delicate collarbones, and a black Dior skirt slit modestly up the side.
But what about the shoes? You haven't imagined the shoes!
What's sad? I know you're joking, but It's probably true.
Oh, dear god. They don't really make that stuff in his size, do they?
[/loses lunch]
Jesus fucking Christ. I have literally no excuses now not to write a book, and I hadn't even been planning on writing one.
My favorite character is the closeted Christian group leader named Balph Beed who fantasizes about rentboys and meth all while ripping off Indian tribes as a lobbyist…
You made me laugh out loud.
"All politics are only a marketing stunt for selling books.", Tengu wrote as the sweat from his early morning run glistened off his well-toned abs.
(This is an excerpt from my new book, 'The Blog Poster' available now in hardback from Random House)
In the context of American Psycho Ralph Reed has all the morality of Patrick Bateman while looking like a walking cartoon; a clown fart if you will. What this turgid prose needs is another Bill O'Reilly thriller in which he lets his darkest desires run free yet again. Seriously though, could we have expected anything different from this chump? Democrats are all evil, amoral and hippocritical and conservatards are vengeful and moralistic and this is spun into a positive light. Sounds like the foreign policy segments of the book will get Dick Cheney fapping yet again…maybe some good will come of this when his non-heart explodes? I like to search for the sunny side….
I was struck by the reference to a "two-thousand dollar silver Brioni tie." Even at Needless-Markup, Brioni ties retail for $195.00, tops. Or is this story set in some hyperinflated dystopian Hellscape only Ralphie Boy can imagine?
This is off topic but I have to post about this to blow off steam….I just saw a segment on "Allen Greenspan's wife reports" (maybe Andrea Mitchell is just Ayn Rand in disguise?) in which she reviews Ken Vogel from the Doucheitico about that wallstreet lobbyist-corporatist hack Pat Toomey and Ken Vogel opens his yawning maw of retarded stupidity to declare, "Pat Toomey was the tea party before the tea party was cool" God I fucking hate the Politico…
The Tea Party is cool? LOL.
he gets ruptured up the behind.
sorry, didn't mean to spoil it for you.
War with Iran. The Democrats twisting themselves in knots over abortion, as they alienate their base going after a Latino nominee.
Wasn't this just the game plan of the 2nd Bush term before his domestic agenda tanked, Iraq fell apart, and the economy took a nose dive?
I have it on good authority that while Christy Love does not play in someone else's sandbox, she does occasionally color outside of the lines.
Ralph Reed made my skin crawl in the 90's and now I feel as if I've been given an outrageous case of food poisoning. The man is revolting. Snake oil peddling ass face pig, so there, lint licker!
So in sum, The Confirmation is basically a verbatim account of Ralph Reed wanting to get repeatedly buttsecked by a long-donged Democratic senator and a Waziri arms dealer with a pudding cup that reminds him of Jo-Glo, all the while being dolled up in a flawless Chanel frock, entirely too much designer jewelry, and some tacky last season white pumps that he knows full well he shouldn't wear after Labor Day.
I'm pretty sure my local Dollar Tree is clearing off a special place on the shelves in their "book section" even as we type.
Plus, that'll give them an excuse to move The Overton Window to the "Everything's a Quarter" shopping basket they keep near the front.
My bad.
I wish Reed and all the other religious wingnuts would get raptured, (ruptured?), up so the rest of us could be on with the business of living in the real world.
He just wanted to be superfluous *and* redundant.
Which is why it's so hard to get the knot right.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that this deep-in-the-closet greedheaded twerp is obsessed with fashion and tacky bling; unfortunately, in order to sell books to the repug base, he has to include military tech-porn as well. Thus, we end up with an unholy mix of Tom Clancy and Sex And The City. Thank FSM that the book scientists are on the case so that we don't need to!
Ralph Reed=Damien Thorn
Such a focus on fashion makes me wonder if Ralph is a bit, um, gay? Do the sex scenes read like this?
"Raymond lifted himself up with his muscular, beefy arms. 'Lauren,' he asked, 'are you coming to bed?' The sheet slid down his chest, resting around his waist. Lauren wore a nightgown. Raymond's chest was like finely chiseled marble, and his pecs glistened in the moonlit bedroom. Lauren had brown hair. Raymond smiled slyly, his deep blue eyes piercing the distance between them. Lauren longed to touch his…"
Half the fucking book takes place in various public bathrooms, woods in public parks and Interstate rest stops.
Wasilla has a Library?
Christy Love's posture wasn't the only thing in that scene that was stiffening, AMIRITE?
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