Rushdie’s New York Bubble

nybooks.com

44 pointsmoab4 comments

If you want an intro to Rushdie, try Imaginary Homelands, his book of essays from long ago. His craftsmanship with language and insight makes it clear why he's a leading writer (and I'm not).

>Salman Rushdie has managed, within a year of the 2016 election, to publish the first novel of the Trumpian Era

Nope -- easily beaten by Howard Jacobson's Pussy. Rushdie however still has an opportunity to write the first good novel of the Trumpian era.

I was at an event this week where Rushdie was speaking about this book (among other things)[0], apparently pretty much all of the book was written before the election - the reality just worked out in a way that it fit with the book. In a sense, he was saying, the book told him that this is how things had to work out, even though he's very much against the election result... So the trick to "be the first" is to be ahead of the curve, I guess.

[0]: https://membership.theguardian.com/event/salman-rushdie-a-li...

I think in Jacobson's case he was fast just because he was doing his regular schtick on autopilot. A pretty uninspiring read. Great cover though.

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