Basket Of Deplorables
by Tom Rachman
Riverrun £8.99
Donald Trump’s victory is providing fresh meat for comedians and Tom Rachman shows that the consequences for American life can also be translated into fiction.
‘Basket of deplorables’ is, of course, the celebrated phrase Hilary Clinton used to describe Trump supporters. This collection of short stories begins in a swish Manhattan apartment on election night as literary and media luminaries gather to celebrate the election of the first woman president of the United States. Added to what the reader already knows about the ghastly political outcome of the evening, there is the fictional spice of knowing that the hostess is working up the courage to make a devastating announcement.
Rachman draws his characters well. Be they New York Liberals, the guy from Portland, Oregon, who is trying to make his internet date work, the chubby Starbucks barista organising a large funeral for his unpopular elder brother to please his mother, or even the evil brother himself. Each one is believable and even sympathetic – leaving aside the aforementioned brother. The five stories move geographically from liberal New York, through Kalamazoo, Michigan, to Portland, Oregon – another liberal enclave. While the tales are not overtly political, Rachman tries to give us a taste of Trump’s America.
As the cover declares, they are ‘almost true stories’, so appropriately, current affairs facts are mixed in with fake news, particularly the rather horrifying Leakzilla. This is the hacking of all emails, so that anyone can look up any email ever sent. Nothing is private any more. And in the final story, the web site which knows how everyone is going to die.
The connecting thread that the reader slowly discovers running through the stories turns them into a satisfying novella. There is only one major fault – length. At just over 200 pages with quite a lot of space, there is not enough.
