Shani O. Hilton says O: A Presidential Novel doesn’t get the 24-hour news cycle. And perhaps that should tell us something.
The disdain journalists are showing for O is amusing, if unsurprising. David Weigel at Slate called it “execrable” and mocked the publisher’s request that political journalists not comment on whether they authored the novel. (Weigel suggests it is the work of a “young-adult fiction writer.”) Alex Balk at The Awl guessed at the “real” ending: “Someone with an attenuated connection to the president will make a considerably larger amount of money than if they had published under their own name, which they will eventually reveal without any detrimental effects to their professional reputation.” It certainly seems likely a journalist — or a former journalist — wrote it, because of the level of seriousness with which the book portrays old media’s role in the political process. In the United States of O, very little attention is paid to blogs or the 24-hour news cycle.