Literally no one was surprised that Hillary Clinton’s brand-new first novel, co-written with Louise Penny, topped the bestseller list this week. Bestsellerdom was all but assured, given the fame of the authors, the lavish praise from the media, the enormous marketing effort. Plus, if Bill Clinton’s ridiculous novel sold millions, this one will too.
I didn’t order an advance copy of Hillary’s new book, and to be honest I probably won’t read it. Not because I hate her politics, but because her husband’s book was so awful, I have similar expectations for this. Once again, Hillary is undone by her husband’s carelessness. Tale as old as time.
Hillary is many things, but “original thinker” is probably not going on her tombstone. I’m OK with that — in fact, I’m a big advocate for doing more of what works well. And certainly, Bill’s novel worked exceedingly well. So well, he has a second book out. So, if Bill can partner with a successful and well-known novelist (James Patterson) to write a novel, why can’t Hillary?
The first collaboration between Bill Clinton and James Patterson, “The President Is Missing,” was a massive commercial success — it was rated #1 on numerous national bestseller lists, and it was the bestselling novel of the year in 2018.
Trouble is: it was terrible. And in this case, I did actually read the book. Well, not the entire book. But I tried. I was not dissuaded by Bill’s politics, I like political thrillers, and I thought this one sounded like fun. I congratulated myself for being so open-minded, and downloaded the free sample on my Kindle. I wanted to like it!
But it was clear from page one that this was not a great book. The New York Times should literally be ashamed of themselves (well, for many things, but in this case) for calling it “ambitious and wildly readable.” Ambitious, perhaps. Wildly readable – not one single bit.
And I can tell you exactly what was wrong with it. First, it was written in the first-person. I thought that was a mistake, frankly — a narrator can say things about the heroic main character that the hero cannot say about himself. So, when the protagonist is telling the story, he must show you how wonderful he is, not tell you. In “The President Is Missing,” our hero’s admiration for himself was undiluted and boundless. The hero was constantly complaining about being under siege – and then of course bragging about how brave and selfless he was. At first, it was eye-rolling, but pretty soon it was just silly.
Secondly, the cast of characters was like an Apple commercial – dripping with tokenism and unrecognizable to normal people in most of America. Third, the opening scene was so thinly veiled as a relitigation of Clinton’s real impeachment as president that it read like bad PR, not good fiction. The conceit was that this was a “mock” hearing, a practice run for an embattled president about to face impeachment. But it read like Bill Clinton’s therapy session, a chance for him to say all the things he really wanted to say to all those bad, bad Republicans – but couldn’t say in a real life Congressional hearing… or even in fake real life.
Our fictional president was (conveniently) a widower, so no blue dress moments here. He also managed to serve in the military, inoculating himself (apparently) from any criticism over foreign policy.
But after the first 20 pages, I couldn’t go on.
I did not feel guilty setting the book aside. Not because Bill Clinton wrote it, but because I long ago gave myself a gift that I will give to you right now. Ready? Here it is: You have permission to not finish a book. Any book!
If you are anything like me, you have been taught to always finish the book. No matter how tedious it is, no matter how long it takes, you are not supposed to stop until the end. There is something vaguely shameful in not finishing. It’s like abandoning a puppy who is hard to train – surely with a little more concentration and practice, that little dog will fall right into line.
But the truth is, there is nothing wrong with not finishing a bad book. There are far more good books published than anyone could read in an entire lifetime, so why waste time on a bad one? Don’t do it! Cut the cord, and start reading a different, better book instead.
There, don’t you feel better?