For some reason, yesterday I remembered this novel review from 2003. A Washington Post reviewer calls up the author of The Great American Parade:
I tell Burrows that if he is willing to submit to an interview, I am willing to review his book at length in The Washington Post. The only catch, I said, is that I am going to say that it is, in my professional judgment, the worst novel ever published in the English language.
Silence.
“My review will reach 2 million people,” I said.
Okay,” he said.
It does not sound like a deathless work of timeless literature.
Me: It is possible that some people might have found the plot a little improbable. They might find it hard to believe that, in order to garner political support for his tax cuts, George W. Bush would secretly arrange a giant parade in Washington honoring the richest people in America, who would march front to back in order of their net worth. Or that a cadre of earnest, teetotaling college students would get wind of this and, encouraged by Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, rise up to stage a heroic counter-parade honoring basic American values like morality and hard work. Was this perhaps deft satire, a nifty Swiftian touch?
Burrows: No.
Me: Ah.
Anyway, the review is well worth your time…
