The Twentieth Day of January
January 20, 2017 2:54 PM   Subscribe

Now, I never paid any attention to this. I had no interest in reading an obscure spy novel just because Trump liked it. But then over Christmas after the election, I was visiting family in Bozeman, Montana. And there it was, in a used bookstore: The Twentieth Day of January. THEORY OF EVERYTHING: And? Is it good? “JOSH GLENN”: No, it’s terrible. The plot is ridiculous.

A Republican — Logan Powell — has just been elected president. This guy has never been in politics before, but he beats a crowded field of experienced politicians to become first a senator, then president. He’s from a wealthy East Coast family, but he sells himself as a populist. And his big idea is — he wants the US and Russia to be friends. And despite opposition from within his own party, this guy wins the election.
posted by cgc373 (73 comments total) 61 users marked this as a favorite
 
"Unavailable in the US"
posted by fogovonslack at 3:23 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


You definitely undersold your link. That first image is priceless ;).
posted by Pinback at 3:24 PM on January 20, 2017 [8 favorites]


Well, no wonder it's felt like we've been living in a bad thriller novel...
posted by nubs at 3:31 PM on January 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


Am I dreaming? Is this real? Is this some kind of parody? This is the weirdest thing I've ever heard.
posted by mosschief at 3:49 PM on January 20, 2017 [23 favorites]


Am I dreaming? Is this real? Is this some kind of parody? This is the weirdest thing I've ever heard.

Totally!

What about the book, though?
posted by Celsius1414 at 3:52 PM on January 20, 2017 [31 favorites]


Unfucking believable
posted by evilDoug at 3:53 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'll keep my eyes peeled at work.
posted by jonmc at 3:53 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


Post Post-Truth. Noice.
posted by fullerine at 3:53 PM on January 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


But it's available used in paperback for $1101.89. I wonder if Trump is selling his copy.
posted by NormieP at 3:56 PM on January 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


I swear, this kinda stuff makes me seriously start to believe the theory we live in a computer simulation. Available in Canada! I may have to read this thing ... only $0.99 for the ebook.
posted by fimbulvetr at 4:05 PM on January 20, 2017 [7 favorites]


pre-posterous and re-posterous.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 4:21 PM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


HOLY. SHIT.
posted by Fizz at 4:22 PM on January 20, 2017


Holy crap.
posted by kspliff at 4:22 PM on January 20, 2017


The worst-timeline.
posted by Fizz at 4:26 PM on January 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


is this the real life / is this just parody? / caught in [what Trump claims is] a landslide / no escape from reality [TV]
posted by uosuaq at 4:32 PM on January 20, 2017 [19 favorites]


This is now my headcanon.
posted by officer_fred at 4:43 PM on January 20, 2017 [8 favorites]


Should I start tossing the coins and reading the i ching to find out the real history?
posted by drewbage1847 at 4:45 PM on January 20, 2017 [27 favorites]


Wait. What? Is this a bit?
posted by sporkwort at 4:47 PM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


Mama, just killed a country
Putin put a gun against my head
Pulled his trigger, now it's dead
Mama, true freedom had just begun
But now I've gone and thrown it all away.
posted by Splunge at 4:47 PM on January 20, 2017 [8 favorites]


Alternate title. This is real, maybe?
posted by prize bull octorok at 4:49 PM on January 20, 2017


Three Days of the Condor has nothing on reality, apparently.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:07 PM on January 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


Thank you, I really, really needed a laugh today.
posted by bq at 5:12 PM on January 20, 2017


Yeah, the book itself is apparently real, but I don't know how accurate the plot summary and context described in the article are. The "investigative fiction" tagline has me raising an eyebrow, to put it mildly.
posted by teraflop at 5:17 PM on January 20, 2017 [5 favorites]


This fake news stuff has really fucked y'all up
posted by stinkfoot at 5:29 PM on January 20, 2017 [11 favorites]


This publisher's summary supports some of the allegations
posted by Glomar response at 5:32 PM on January 20, 2017


Oh man. It's darkly hilarious that after the events of the last year, we've become pretty much incapable of disbelieving anything no matter how far fetched, because when it comes to politics in America, we have Seen Some Shit™. Is this story true? Is it not true? Maybe halfway true? We don't even fucking know anymore. Through the looking glass, out the other side, down the stairs, out the door, and halfway across the goddamn field. Welcome to 2017.

for the record my bs detector is pinging pretty hard. like, really hard. like, this is fiction guys. but really, who the fuck even knows anymore. who would have guessed we'd be here a year ago?
posted by Two unicycles and some duct tape at 5:39 PM on January 20, 2017 [12 favorites]


Should I start tossing the coins and reading the i ching to find out the real history?

The Grasshopper Lies Heavy.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:42 PM on January 20, 2017 [12 favorites]




They refer to it as "investigative fiction" in the intro. I'm pretty sure this is fiction.

The problem is, these days, the distance between fiction and "fake news" is getting thinner and thinner.

Our reaction to this is straight-up Poe's Law.
posted by MythMaker at 5:46 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


HOW DOES IT END?!
posted by palegirl at 5:51 PM on January 20, 2017 [13 favorites]


The opening of the article pretty much says it's partially fictional. I'll go with the book is real and even go with it being eerily similar to current events, but I think that the parts about Trump's relation with the book are fiction.
posted by ckape at 5:55 PM on January 20, 2017 [5 favorites]


If a weird semi-fictional book thing was going to become reality, why couldn't it have been The Accidental Savior?
posted by tobascodagama at 6:06 PM on January 20, 2017


It's being reported that Malia Obama is going to intern for Harvey Weinstein, so now we know who needs to buy the movie rights.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:28 PM on January 20, 2017


People, people, people. It's a truth-as-fiction double-bluff! Duhhhh! They tell the truth in all its glory, with tiny little dashes of fiction (change a name here, or an irrelevant description there) and call it "investigative fiction" so you say, "Oh, you almost had me going there!" and write the whole thing off as a silly fantasy when all the meaty bits are the real deal.

Seriously, though, let's not even. Fascination with totally bonkers conspiracy theory kookery is what convinced a lot of people to vote for Trump in the first place. It's all fun and games until someone loses a democracy.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:40 PM on January 20, 2017 [11 favorites]


It's being reported that Malia Obama is going to intern for Harvey Weinstein, so now we know who needs to buy the movie rights.

Ew, really? Does she know about all the rumours about him?
posted by Sys Rq at 6:42 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


Wow, I didn't know the rumors about him, but after some googling... eesh.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:48 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


After the Rose McGowan thing, I wouldn't leave any woman alone in a room with either Weinstein just to play the odds.
posted by Megafly at 6:58 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


So yeah, fuck Harvey Weinstein, but somebody needs to get the movie rights and make this, it's just too damn weird not to.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:05 PM on January 20, 2017


Honestly, the real news is so bizarre lately this had me going for a minute. DONALD TRUMP WAS INAUGURATED TODAY hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....... I'm dying on the inside
posted by mosschief at 7:50 PM on January 20, 2017 [6 favorites]


I just discovered Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything! The podcast he did 3 years ago about 1984 is heart wrenching and eerily prescient.
posted by rikschell at 8:08 PM on January 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


Wait! What's happening here?
posted by bongo_x at 8:23 PM on January 20, 2017


"Mulder, I think you should just try to get back to sleep. Did you take your medication this morning? No, I'm not nagging you, I just... OK, OK. Should I come... all right, I won't hang up. Tell me the part about the second trip to Russia, but leave out the sex tapes. No, I just don't need that mental image. Did you have anything to eat today?"
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:23 PM on January 20, 2017 [5 favorites]


This is really fucking with me because this was one of my fantasy scenarios in the last couple of days, that the CIA gets to Melania to bring him down and Trump commits suicide.
posted by bongo_x at 8:34 PM on January 20, 2017 [4 favorites]


If this was some post-truth flim-flam to get me to buy a $2 Kindle book and see if it can really be true, well, it worked. Well done.
posted by No-sword at 8:42 PM on January 20, 2017 [3 favorites]


When I look at the page it says not available for purchase.
posted by bongo_x at 8:46 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


Well, I just got it from Kobo for 99 cents, so I guess I'll find out how much truth there is to this.
posted by fimbulvetr at 8:54 PM on January 20, 2017 [2 favorites]


So this is a modern day Futility, then?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:06 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


I thought I was going to be able to buy it from a German site but since I don't know German I think I just signed up for a timeshare before I hit a dead end.
posted by bongo_x at 9:20 PM on January 20, 2017 [16 favorites]


one thing that is definitely true that i did not know was the 1989 nytimes ad. wow. this motherfucker has been a russian toadie for going on 30 years. mind bending.
posted by wibari at 9:51 PM on January 20, 2017 [7 favorites]


After listening to the episode, believing what I heard, recounting the tale to a friend ("this sounds fake"), then reading the comments here, I was worried that I'd finally been duped by fake news!

Title appears on abebooks and goodreads, with a plausible synopsis, so I guess this book is at least real. Who knew trashy softcover thrillers commanded these prices? Not me.
posted by tummy_rub at 10:10 PM on January 20, 2017 [1 favorite]


I'm not buying that Donald Trump has actually read a book without more evidence than this. I mean, not necessarily this book. Just... any book.
posted by Sequence at 2:06 AM on January 21, 2017 [12 favorites]


Not currently available on Amazon in the US. Not currently available on kobo in the US. But I'll be going to Mexico soon… Better get me some Wi-Fi while I'm there.
posted by tilde at 5:13 AM on January 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


Speaking of eerily prescient books, I reccomend Upton Sinclair's It Can't Happen Here, which (to quote an Amazon review from 2003):

"Starts with the highly contested election of an oafish yet strangely charismatic president, who talks like a "reformer" but is really in the pocket of big business, who claims to be a home-spun "humanist," while appealing to religious extremists, and who speaks of "liberating" women and minorities, as he gradually strips them of all their rights."
posted by Itaxpica at 7:13 AM on January 21, 2017 [6 favorites]


"If this goes on...", a short story, by Robert A. Heinlein.

A religious nut is elected in 2012. Using advanced "psychometry".
posted by Goofyy at 8:03 AM on January 21, 2017 [3 favorites]


I'm looking forward to the reports from those of you who have read the book. The -89 ad is worth it all though.
posted by mumimor at 11:28 AM on January 21, 2017


After the Rose McGowan thing

It's interesting, this is what she's up to now:

rose mcgowan wants to end male privilege, period

Rose McGowan on the power of female anger
posted by cotton dress sock at 1:42 PM on January 21, 2017 [1 favorite]


> The -89 ad is worth it all though.

What is the "-89 ad"?
posted by languagehat at 2:36 PM on January 21, 2017


The only 1989 ad I know of connected to Trump was his infamous call for the execution of the Central Park Five (more info [it's quite notable that the young men whose execution Trump sought were later exonerated by DNA evidence, yet Trump has continued to blame the men for the crime as recently as October 2016 {warning: autoplay video}]).

I think the ad folks are probably referring to here his is 1987 ad criticizing US foreign policy.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 3:26 PM on January 21, 2017 [2 favorites]


I think the ad folks are probably referring to here his is 1987 ad criticizing US foreign policy.
Yes, sorry, my bad
posted by mumimor at 11:07 PM on January 21, 2017


Wait - did Soviet intelligence fucking incept DJT in the 80's? What the actual fuck.
posted by msali at 1:03 PM on January 22, 2017 [2 favorites]


For whatever it's worth, this was re-published as Cold Tactics in 2001, and my library system has a copy. Hopefully it's a quick read.
posted by uncleozzy at 5:14 AM on January 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


Confirming Uncleozzy that the book is also published as Cold Tactics, and currently Amazon US has some hard covers available, but no kindle. My library catalog doesn't list it, even as interlibrary loan, and there's no way I'm paying $15 for it, but I'm waiting with bated breath to hear reports back from some of you that have gotten your hands on it.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 1:59 PM on January 25, 2017


Also, have you guys read the bio of the author on Wikipedia?
Theodore Edward le Bouthillier Allbeury (born Stockport, 24 October 1917 – died Tunbridge Wells, 4 December 2005) was a British author of espionage fiction.[1][2][3] He served as an intelligence officer in the Special Operations Executive between 1940 and 1947, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. He is believed to be the only British secret agent who parachuted into Nazi Germany during the war, and he remained there until the Allied armies arrived. During the Cold War he was captured and tortured when running agents across the border between East and West Germany. After running his own advertising agency, he became the managing director of the seafort-based pirate radio station Radio 390 in 1964, later moving to the ship-based Radio 355 (see under Swinging Radio England for details) until its closure in August 1967.[4][5]
But the page was edited just a few days ago. I'm not familiar with wiki architecture and I only spent a few minutes trying to figure out how to see past versions of the page, but apparently I'm doing it wrong, because all I can pull up is references to the cold war. So, maybe the page was only created a few days ago, or maybe I just suck at wiki.

I can't help but feel that this is too blair witchy, ya know? Like those viral things that made the rounds a few years ago, where it looked like a real thing, but was actually an elaborate ad for something.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 2:18 PM on January 25, 2017


Here's the revision history, SecretAgentSockPuppet. The page was created in September of 2012; most of the recent edits appear to be things like correcting capitalization or adding dashes. Information about his military history seems to have been there since 2015.
posted by Lexica at 4:48 PM on January 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


It looks like Kobo's "Unavailable in the US" restriction can be bypassed with a Canadian proxy :)

I'll let you know how it is after I read it.
posted by duoshao at 6:30 PM on January 25, 2017 [2 favorites]


Remember the film "Wag The Dog" where they create a fake old song.
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 11:04 AM on January 26, 2017 [2 favorites]


Well it doesn't seem to be on his bookshelf, but that's not really conclusive one way or the other.
posted by ckape at 7:15 PM on January 26, 2017 [5 favorites]


My interlibrary loan came in yesterday. Looks short and ten pages in I've already read the phrase "male lust," so that's good news.
posted by uncleozzy at 3:19 AM on January 27, 2017 [4 favorites]


Well it doesn't seem to be on his bookshelf, but that's not really conclusive one way or the other.

That's the most depressing image I've seen all week.
posted by interrobang at 12:51 PM on January 27, 2017 [4 favorites]




I haven't had a ton of time to read, so I just finished it. Dry as toast spy novel, all intrigue and no action (which is fine), with a couple of tremendously bad sex scenes (I swear I remember the phrase "pink-tipped rockets," but that can't possibly be right, can it? That I'm even asking the question should describe the quality of the prose).

But the plot summary in the article is substantively accurate: political outsider wins election through KGB meddling to which he isn't party, but of which he cannot be unaware; SIS agent uncovers it and investigates it alongside CIA; nobody in either party wants to touch it until the evidence is overwhelming; although offered a dignified resignation, the President-elect seems to commit suicide (I say "seems to" only because there's some hinted-at additional intrigue that, truthfully, I didn't follow and can't be asked to look at again).

I'm not happy I read it. But I have read worse things.
posted by uncleozzy at 11:20 AM on February 1, 2017 [5 favorites]


God bless Interlibrary Loan indeed. I see uncleozzy already has supplied the book report I came in here to deliver. Again, it's pretty standard Cold War fiction, certainly competent but nothing special.

Additionally: the Russians – who call each other ‘Comrade’ all the time – see their investment as “an experiment, a tactical exercise. What our friends in the U.S. would call practical democracy.” The differences between the fictional stooge and the current stooge in office are that the one in the book comes to the presidency from being governor of Connecticut (which the Russians arranged in the first place), he's a young guy with little money, and, once he gets into office, he wants to cut the defense budget. It's written by an Englishman, so an Englishman, who alerts the CIA to the whole scheme, is the hero.

At the end of chapter 10, the head of the CIA says, "The whole bloody nation is excited that they've got a new kind of man. Somebody who isn't a lifetime professional politician. The man who's going to lead them to the American dream. By now I should be used to it all, but this is really obscene.... Those bastards in Moscow planning this abuse... Even if we can stop it and [he]'s impeached, those bastards have won. The American people won't ever be able to trust the whole bloody set-up." Bloody Russians, indeed.

I swear I remember the phrase "pink-tipped rockets," but that can't possibly be right, can it?

No, it isn't. The author does refer to one woman’s "spiky pink tips," and another has two "pale pink tips soft and innocent," but no rockets.
posted by LeLiLo at 1:40 AM on February 3, 2017 [4 favorites]


Well, since the only things Trump reads are about himself, it is plausible that if he accidentally read something that wasn't about him he'd do everything he could to make it be about him.
posted by ckape at 12:03 PM on February 4, 2017 [6 favorites]


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