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Rightwing Pundits Belong on the Fiction Lists

Glenn Beck, Michelle Malkin have crafted paranoid masterpieces

By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 12, 2009 2:04 PM CDT

(Newser) Salon writer Steve Almond has seen the future of literary fiction and it looks like Glenn Beck. Right-wing pundits like Beck and Michelle Malkin have dominated non-fiction bestseller lists since President Obama took office, Almond notes. A close read finds that their works aren't the "psychotic, fact-challenged rants of the mad" they may seem to be, but "carefully crafted metafictions" that belong to a fine literary tradition.

Beck and his ilk have created works "in which the mundane terrors of cultural dislocation are recast as riveting epics of paranoia," Almond writes, creating a counternarrative to reality in which an election loss is actually a sinister coup d'etat. The narrators "Glenn Beck" and "Michelle Malkin," with their multiple neuroses and paranoid worldview, are plainly satirical characters crafted by masters, Almond concludes, and will be much discussed by the literary historians of the future.

Radio host Glenn Beck has been a fixture in nonfiction bestseller lists for much of this year.
Radio host Glenn Beck has been a fixture in nonfiction bestseller lists for much of this year.   (AP Photo/Mike Mergen, file)
Beck is a wildly imaginative performer, Almond writes, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist.  His tract, accordingly, takes the
Beck is a "wildly imaginative performer," Almond writes," a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist. His tract, accordingly, takes the   (Amazon)
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While liberal scribes earnestly prattle on about the necessity for good policy in the face of global warming and peak oil and blah-blah-blah, the authors of the right have long since abandoned this outdated 'reality-based'model. - Steve Almond

Beck is not a politician. He's an entertainer, in this case a writer indulging in a mischievous satire narrated by his energetic counterpart 'Glenn Beck.' - Steve Almond

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 40 comments
cornelison
Sep 13, 2009 12:18 PM CDT
Tonight Mike Huckabee announced that true journalism is dead. His show is on Fox! He has a free "infomercial" for his future bid for the presidency. He says that most people without health insurance is a temporary inconvenience. One can only imagine how much he has poisoned his congregation.
Fiskebolle
Sep 13, 2009 8:23 AM CDT
Interesting statement, Wisconsin, frenzy eh? Within the first 7 posts on this page there are no less than two posts that maintain that he should die for his opinions. The filter you've built in your brain is impressive, did you do it all by yourself?
ThumperNM
Sep 13, 2009 8:10 AM CDT
Or not, he may flame out like his mother and brother and commit suicide. He is clearly a few cards short of a full deck.

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