If this were all a novel...who would be the author...?

[First Speaker]

...I think a collaboration between Dante, Shakespeare, Kafka, Philip K Dick, Hunter Thompson, and Harlan Ellison might--just *might*--be sufficient for the nightmare we're facing. Indeed, I often wonder if we *are* living in a peculiarly hellish fictional construct. That's almost a reassuring thought--because then, it wouldn't be true...

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Dostoevsky, maybe.

[Stuart G]

34. I agree...Dostoevsky...I read one of his novels 50 years ago..

It was great, twisted, remarkable, convoluted, fascinating..whatever...??.............................It was ..........

"The Brothers Karamazov "

[maveric]

2. Stephen King

Seriously.

[OldHippieChick]

23. Ditto

[StarryNite]

26. Ditto to your ditto

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

64. Yep, Stephen King.

Possibly in collaboration with Peter Straub. Their joint novel The Talisman is the ONLY book that ever gave me nightmares.

[malaise]

3. Joseph Conrad

This is beyond the Heart of Darkness

[jberryhill]

4. Dr. Seuss

[imanamerican63]

9. You beat me to this one!

[MFM008]

5. Kafka

........

[RandomAccess]

76. Yep, that's my vote. Altho Dr. Seuss is a very close 2nd.

[unblock]

6. some reject. too clunky, too obvious, too inartful, too implausible.

any name author is way too good to come up with such drivel.


nope, this story reads like something someone wrote for high school project and got a c- at best.

[PatSeg]

10. Yes, totally implausible

and we only know a fraction of what all happened. If it was a movie, I'd walk out. Who would believe such an outrageous figure like Trump could end up in the White House? Steve Bannon, Carter Page, Kellyanne Conway, Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Maybe as a comedy, but not terribly funny either.

The reason no one has ever written such a story, is because no one would read it or believe it.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. Kafka.

This whole thing is our collective Kafkaesqe experience.

[unc70]

8. Ludlum, Grisham, and someone else

Many of the others seem to have too much religion or philosophy. Others are too subtle.

[rzemanfl]

11. Elmore Leonard? n/t

[Brother Buzz]

25. Elmore Leonard certainly wrote tight stories back in his day

But this one is so loopy and bizarre, I suspect it might be right up another Floridian's alley: Tim Dorsey

Tim Dorsey is an American novelist. He is known for a series starring Serge A. Storms, a mentally disturbed vigilante antihero who rampages across Florida enforcing his own moral code against a variety of low-life criminals.

[rzemanfl]

27. I have read every one of his books and actually met him at a book thing.

Just read his latest, The Pope of Palm Beach. I thought about him, bit thought not enough folks here would know his work.

[Brother Buzz]

38. A couple of us know him. Hell, we even have a DUer that goes by the name SergeStorms

I read novels set it tropic settings during the Winter, especially when it's a dank 40 degrees in California, and Tim Dorsey is always a welcome addition to my reading stack.

I just placed a hold on The Pope of Palm Beach up at my Podunk Carnegie library. Thanks for the heads up.

[rzemanfl]

40. Have you read Laurence Shames? Randy Wayne White? James W. Hall?

Shames is a stich, old stuff but funny as hell.

[Brother Buzz]

46. Yes, yes, no

My benchmark for everything Florida, was John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee. Back in the day, I remember anxiously waiting for his next installment.

Have you read Bob Morris? I was just starting to like Bob Morris' Zack Chasteen then he just stopped. Bummer.

[rzemanfl]

48. I recently read the entire Travis McGee series in order.

I have not read Morris. I think you'd like Hall. There's another series I am trying to remember, set in Florida, the character is an attorney. I hate senior moments.

[rzemanfl]

51. Ed McBain, Matthew Hope series. Had to resort to computer to fix the senior moment. n/t

[Brother Buzz]

59. I've read Ed McBain but never really connected with his writing

Interesting, the person who hipped me to McGee forty years ago also recommended McBain. Perhaps I should give it another try.

[rzemanfl]

77. The Hope series is set in Florida and is a fairly short series. There is another short one.

Senior moment again.

[Brother Buzz]

81. Short is good

My dank 40 degrees California days are waning.

[rzemanfl]

83. It is a chilly 61 degrees here this morning. I may have gotten an author

mixed up in my senior moment. I don't find the series I am thinking of in the list of McBain's writings. Like most senior moments it will come to me when least expected.

[John1956PA]

12. Kurt Vonnegut, who employed insight and humor to fathom political and social ironies. n/t

[dembotoz]

13. +1

[lapfog_1]

14. my first thought... you beat me to the post

we are on a planet of absurdity.

[marylandblue]

30. My first thought also

Only he could capture the absurdity of it all.

[el_bryanto]

62. My first thought as well. nt

[moondust]

67. Vonnegut or Voltaire

[Victory at Yorktown]

15. "I have No Mouth, And I Must Scream", Harlan Ellison

One of my favorite authors. That title fits.

[MrsCoffee]

16. Orwell.

[lindysalsagal]

35. Absolutely.

Assume the worst of those in power.

[kwassa]

17. Thinking of "Elmer Gantry", I would pick Sinclair Lewis.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. Hunter S Thompson, or Carl Hiaasen

Just for laughs

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

19. George R R Martin

Donald Trump would be Lord Walder Frey.

Oh, wait, did it end well for Walder Frey? Maybe not so well.

[shraby]

20. Stephen King

[malchickiwick]

21. John Kennedy Toole (author of "Confederacy of Dunces")

[Leghorn21]

55. Oooooh, good for you, mal!! Although, well...Dunces was so awfully sweet-natured...

I should read that again, LOVE IT - read it decades ago, and still quote the line, for no particular reason, (the guy goes into a bar and has been hired as the cleaning man) - -

“Where they keep them mutherfuckin broom?!”

[malchickiwick]

70. I agree. A very sweet little novel. Such a sad story of its authorship, as well...

...published posthumously after JKL passed far too young. Won the pulitzer. Great line, BTW, and you've convinced me I need to read it again too. It's been a decade-plus.

[GusBob]

57. Damn, you clever devil

I was gonna pick that one

[malchickiwick]

71. I'm a Lions fan; I see you like the Pack. Crazy to think I actually scored a win here, LOL...

Great minds, right GusBob?

[GusBob]

74. One would wonder how Ignatious and his sidekick Myrna

Would bluster against Trump!

[pnwmom]

22. Carl Hiaasen

[dameatball]

43. More like Carl Hiaasen's evil twin.....:) Where is Skink when we need him?

[pnwmom]

50. Yeah, get Skink to investigate Mar a Lago!

[LAS14]

24. Kafka! (Seems to be winning so far). nt

[Binkie The Clown]

28. Philip K. Dick meets Lewis Carroll nt

[mainstreetonce]

29. Roald Dahl

Donnie and the Puddy Factory

[madamesilverspurs]

31. Tom Robbins

[sdfernando]

32. Douglas Adams /NT

[smirkymonkey]

33. Aldous Huxley.

Although Kafka, Orwell and Vonnegut are good choices as well. I would throw in another one: Margaret Atwood, author of "The Handmaid's Tale.

[babydollhead]

36. Dr. Kevorkian.

[VOX]

37. Paddy Chayefsky, for a *Network/Altered States* mash-up.

Chayefsky’s work had the rage necessary for tackling the high-stakes weirdness.

Hunter S. Thompson would be equally up to the task.

[enid602]

39. Xaviera

Xaviera Hollander

[Hermit-The-Prog]

41. Ray Bradbury

[oasis]

44. +1

[mythology]

42. John Kennedy Toole

Trump reminds me a great deal of Ignatius J Riley.

[BlueTsunami2018]

45. Clive Barker.

A horror show like this could only be written by a master.

[lpbk2713]

47. Joseph Heller

People at the higher levels are corrupt, inept or insane. Or any combination of the three.

[Louis1895]

49. John Le Carre

Complicated spy and corrupt government story.

[Spider Jerusalem]

52. Joint effort: Hunter Thompson, Robert Anton Wilson, and William Gibson (n/t)

[Leith]

53. Bram Stoker

or Mary Shelley

[Docreed2003]

54. Faulkner...or Dostoyevsky

[Leghorn21]

58. For sheer nasty down-and-dirty mobster gangster punkass action,

my man James Ellroy - hush hush and on the Q-t, baby

[syringis]

60. Chuck Palahniuk

The current circus reflects pretty much his writing style

[longship]

61. I've been re-reading Kurt Vonnegut' "Cat's Cradle" recently.

Only Bokononism is going to get us through this.

The fourteenth book of Bokonon is the best explanation of what is now happening.

"Sometimes the pool-pah," Bokonon tells us, "exceeds the power of humans to communicate." Bokonon translates pool-pah at one point as "wrath of God."

...

"What hope can there be for mankind," I thought, "when there are such men as Felix Hoenikker to give such playthings as ice-nine to such short-sighted children as almost all men and women are?"

And I remembered The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon, which I had read in its entirety the night before. The Fourteenth Book of Bokonon is entitled, "What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"

It doesn't take long to read The Fourteenth Book. It consists of one word and a period.

This is it.
"Nothing."

And so it goes.

[Demsrule86]

63. Jackie Collins partnered with Stephen king...it is a trashy horror show....really.

[dawg day]

65. I keep thinking that John LeCarre probably thought this all up years ago....

Then scoffed and said to himself, "I can't write this. No one would believe it even as fiction!"

[TryingNot2Freak]

66. Charles Dickens would have had a ball with this. n/t

[lame54]

68. The Farrely Brothers

[McCamy Taylor]

69. Gore Vidal

[highplainsdem]

72. Sinclair Lewis. He'd see it as a modern take on "It Can't Happen Here":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here

[highplainsdem]

73. Btw, sales of that Sinclair Lewis novel surged after the 2016 election, as that Wikipedia

article notes.

[Wounded Bear]

75. Nobody picks the obvious? Ayn Rand...

Clunky, stilted, unrealistic, self absorbed, preachy.

[LisaM]

78. Thomas Pynchon.

This has modern absurdity written all over it, and Pynchon is so shadowy himself he could easily be sitting in on all the meetings without anyone realizing it.

[Laffy Kat]

79. William S. Burroughs.

On one of his trippiest days.

[lapucelle]

80. Franz Kafka...

Kafkaesque
Comes from the author Franz Kafka, and refers to the style with which he wrote his books.

Basically it describes a nightmarish situation which most people can somehow relate to, although strongly surreal with an ethereal, "evil", omnipotent power floating just beyond the senses.

[Upthevibe]

82. Yep... Franz Kafka