The X-President [Hardcover]

Philip Baruth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 4, 2003

A masterful blend of political satire and edgy social commentary, here is a wildly entertaining trip through recent American history and into the impending future. An incisive look at how we love and hate our political leaders, and how they love and hate us back, The X President touches the very heart of what it means to be president—and what a president means to America.

It is the year 2055 and America is entangled in a devastating world war—and losing badly. As the threat of homeland invasion grows stronger, the United States is desperate to change the tide, anyway it can.

Enter Sal Hayden, official biographer of a former president known as BC, now 109 years old and all but forgotten. Charismatic, controversial, and always willing to feel another person’s pain, BC’s political career, like his personal life, is marked by both uncanny triumphs and key blunders—some of which may have doomed the U.S. to defeat. Recording his story has not always been easy, but it has been straightforward. That is, until the day Sal is asked to rewrite it—and not just on the page. For Sal will be granted a biographer’s most fantastic dream, one that will thrust her into the greatest moral dilemma of her life—and the world’s most daring, dangerous, and spectacular spin job. . . .

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In Baruth's (The Dream of the White Village; The Millennium Shows) imaginative novel, the year is 2055, and Bill Clinton-still hearty at 109 and referred to here as BC-has screwed everything up. As a result of two independent and reasonable actions in BC's presidency-expanding NATO and encouraging the (fictitious) Anti-Tobacco accord, which pushed Big Tobacco into foreign markets-the world has been thrust into the brutal, endless Cigarette Wars. Terrorist bombings are a matter of course, as is constant and invasive government surveillance; everywhere there's a sense of impending doom. BC, whose life has been prolonged by biotechnology, has not been treated kindly by history, and so he recruits loner Sal Hayden to write his definitive biography. Enter "James" (for Carville), "George" (for Stephanopoulos) and "Virginia," code-named members of the National Security Council, who have a much grander plan for historical revisionism. Kidnapping Sal, the group travels to 1963 and then to 1995, beginning a series of maneuvers to rewrite history. The mission is not without its snags, Sal's occasionally abrasive personality being one, and the weirdness of it all-a teenaged BC ("yBC") being seduced by an NSC operative and slowly being manipulated into changing the future BC's decisions-makes for page-turning reading. Baruth's facility for leaking and withholding information helps sustain interest, although the story is almost too neat at times. A disappointingly vague ending mars this interesting blend of satire and sci-fi.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The year: 2055. Sal Hayden is writing the biography of a 109-year-old former U.S. president known as BC. Meanwhile, the U.S. is taking a pummeling in the Tobacco Wars, a massive international conflict that resulted from antitobacco legislation BC signed when he was president in the 1990s. When Sal is recruited by the government to participate in an audacious plan to rewrite history so that the Tobacco Wars never happened, she finds herself on a journey so fantastic she would never have imagined it possible. At its heart, this is a novel about American politics, but it's also a story about the nature of history: just because an event has already taken place, does that mean we can't change what happened? It's a comic road trip, too, as Sal and her mismatched trio of associates (a beautiful special-ops expert who calls herself Victoria, a hard-nosed military man code-named James Carville, and a brilliant civilian code-named George Stephanopoulos) set out to find a 16-year-old Arkansas boy who holds the key to America's salvation. Oh, and there is a small, touching, love story in there somewhere. Baruth is especially good at manipulating his narrative, surprising us with sudden twists that leave heroine and reader alike first confused and then forced to reconsider recent history in ways that, oddly, make perfect sense. Students of politics will enjoy picking apart the characters' arguments, alternate-history buffs will be delighted with the author's world building, and comic thriller fans will love the wild ride. Face it: anyone who picks this book up will be thoroughly entertained. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 369 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (November 4, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553802941
• ISBN-13: 978-0553802948
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,572,572 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Political Action Thriller/hilarious Clinton fantasy, December 7, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The X-President (Hardcover)

This novel is more thriller than sci-fi, but the science fiction elements (time travel, cool futuristic technologies) are lots of fun. The X President is also a hilarious political satire that somehow manages to please Clinton-lovers and Clinton-haters at the same time. I'm an admirer of Clinton, but a friend of mine who hates Clinton was roaring with laughter when I read him the great scene involving the interactive virtual reality of the "White House coffee" event. Baruth's characterization of the ancient BC is so good you'll want those scenes to keep rolling. Incredibly, the portrait of young BC (yBC) is, if anything, even better.

Baruth's novel combines edge-of-the-seat action scenes with brilliant vintage historical moments (Cassius Clay, for example, is featured) and laugh-out-loud funny dialogue.

So, why should you get this book? First, it's guaranteed to crack you up. Second, the time travel adventure is exciting (well-plotted and full of moments that make you go "Wow!" and "Oh no!" and "Ah-ha!"). The third reason is that the Clinton stuff is just a blast. Baruth has read everything about the man, perspectives across the spectrum, and has selected the juiciest, tastiest morsels for the reader to chew on. As a bonus, the writing is stylistically fine, a real pleasure for us literary types, and yet not stuffy; so the effect is a stylish but wild ride rather than either a merely stylish ride (think Updike) or a wild ride in a racer that is actually rusting out and about to crumble but you can overlook that because the ride (i.e., the story) is so much fun (think Grisham or Clancy). Enjoy!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clinton meets Heinlein, November 25, 2003

By 

Wayne Dennison (Duxbury, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The X-President (Hardcover)

This is a remarkable book that seamlessly combines science fiction, Clinton-era political commentary, literary theory and trenchant observation on the ethos of politics and pool.

Bill Clinton is beautifully rendered (in nearly every sense of the term). This richly imagined book also works as a compelling piece of science fiction, a knowing comment on the nature of biography, and a primer on the norms and nuances of bar room billiards.

It is Heinlein without the messianic overtones (or the breast fixation); Primary Colors where anonymity and identity ultimately prove to be fungible; Billy Phelan's Greatest Game for the 21st Century.

Baruth's portrait of Clinton evokes the inexplicable "fullness" of an incomplete man (Wolfe's Charlie Croker) and, at times, the near majesty of the ultimate political animal in command of very considerable powers of persuasion and appeal. The yBC character (Clinton as a boy) is near perfect -- a mixture of promise and promiscuity that just feels right.

Over and over, Baruth nails the details from the shape of Clinton's hands to Carville's nearly freakish power of recall (which is hilariously and ingeniously "explained"). Baruth understands both the people who shape political change and those charged with telling and thereby shaping their stories.

The X-President is an enormously entertaining book that, like one of its central characters, ultimately questions what is is.

Baruth here calls and pockets a difficult bank shot. His readers prove to be the winners.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars zippy, smart adventure story, December 10, 2003

By 

Mina Santos (Dowagiac, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The X-President (Hardcover)

I bought this book after reading the enticing review in the NYTimes. I wasn't disappointed. There aren't many good, intelligent adventure stories out there that have an interesting woman as a main character. I have to confess that I've always found George Stephanopoulos sexy, so his part worked great for me, too. This is a very funny book, but I think what kept me going was the quirky, surprising plot (and the nostalgia trips). Mr. Baruth knows how to ask great "what if" questions, and his answers are really brilliant (often scary) alternate realities. It kind of reminded me of Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, which is another fast-moving fantasy adventure I would recommend. They're both kind of brainy books, but page-turners at the same time.