Hatchet Job of the Day

Primary Colours wannabe O: A PRESIDENTIAL NOVEL, a satire of the Obama administration by an anonymous author, has been trashed by critics on both sides of the Atlantic.

First to get her oar in was fearsome Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, who described it as

…a thoroughly lackadaisical performance — trite, implausible and decidedly unfunny… O’s hypocrisy and arrogance, along with improbable plot developments, make it hard not to suspect that the author of this novel is a Republican sympathizer — or at the very least someone very disillusioned with President Obama.

While over on the west coast, the LA Times’ Tim Rutten found the novel

…dispiriting and, ultimately, irritating… less an addition to the rich fictional literature of American politics than an exercise in the genuinely cynical business of marketing and publishing.

Here’s the last word, from our very own Simon Schama:

There’s a reason, I surmise, why the author of this laborious tripe, set during the re-election season of 2012, might have wanted to remain Anonymous and it has nothing to do with any spine-tingling revelations about the Obama White House or his campaign team. Hell, if you had committed something as dull as this you’d want to make sure no one found out either.

You can read all reviews here.

There was also an entertaining discussion of the book on Radio 4′s Saturday Review — about 10 minutes in.