Now that Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Rodham is set to bring mainstream popularity the previously (and rightly) obscure subgenre of literary Clinton-centric erotica, Bill Clinton has announced plans to partner with writer James Patterson in order to write a crime thriller starring a character inspired by his daughter Chelsea. I predict the birth of a trend in American letters. In the very near future, the mass market production of Clinton capers could mean that bookstores will devote entire sections to literature fictionalizing the lived experience of every member of the Clinton family, including Roger and Socks.
In 2018, Clinton and Patterson penned a thriller called The President is Missing, about a president forced to go into hiding after discovering a saboteur in his cabinet, which drew from Clinton’s experiences as president and, most likely, his knowledge around laying low and waiting for shit to blow over. The new book, titled The President’s Daughter is not a sequel. Instead, it is a standalone book “informed by details that only a president can know.”
Though the publisher has already announced the book will be about a president whose daughter is kidnapped, might I suggest a better plot, since the book is presumably still in the draft stage: A seasoned Washington D.C. detective discovers the president’s brilliant 12-year-old daughter has successfully masterminded a clandestine killing spree resulting in the simultaneous deaths of every adult man who previously publicly mocked her appearance on radio and television, suddenly leaving America without a single yelling blowhard. In a third-act twist, just when the detective realizes the preteen murderer has successfully destroyed the last piece of evidence connecting her with the killings, his horror reaches a crescendo as the first daughter, now 13 and with a dangerously refined palate for righteous vengeance, begins to hint she believes her father to be kind of a dirtbag as well.
Another, more selfish, suggestion is that this book need not give us any more fodder for blogs about fictionalized-yet-still-disturbing Clinton boning, as we have currently published two annotated editions on the subject of imaginary Clinton sex and do not anticipate demand for a third.