Books

O: The Novel Not ‘as Bad as You Feared’

Book by Anonymous written with “documentary accuracy.”

We still don’t know who wrote it, but it turns out that O: The Novel, by Anonymous, isn’t as bad as you might guess. The book could use a bigger cast of characters and “a little more satiric bite,” says Washington Post Fiction Editor Ron Charles, but the author “describes the typical campaign with documentary accuracy, and he's particularly good at the dynamic between old and new journalism.” The plot focuses on President Obama’s re-election campaign, and it “stays very close to the conventional wisdom and never presses into the intimate details of his life or his marriage.” Charles writes, “It wouldn't be fair to say O is a stridently partisan novel, but it's clear that the author's sympathies are with the current resident of the White House.”