The New York Times Book Review published its first-ever commissioned work of fiction on Tuesday, a psychologically astute short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that imagined the inner life of one Melania Trump. The tale, called “The Arrangements,” riffed on Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, casting the Slovenian supermodel in the role of Clarissa preparing for a dinner party. But while full of humming, suggestive description, dark humor, and sociological brio, Adichie’s latest took a realist approach to what is, more and more, a mind-meltingly surrealist splatter show of a presidential campaign. Reading this story, it was hard not to think that there are so many other promising avenues of politics-inspired fiction still left to explore. What about the Kafka-esque tableau in which Reince Priebus awakens with the head of a nematode? The fall of Rubio, as seen through the eyes of his bootmaker? Giving the American people a full panoply of electoral fiction options isn’t just our right, it’s our civic duty. Herewith, a few, ah, candidates for your consideration (plus, in parenthesis after each synopsis, the writer we’d assign to each story).
Unpunctuated Faulknerian stream of consciousness set inside Corey Lewandowski’s head (by Chuck Palahniuk)
YA fiction about Hope Hicks on her first day at Greenwich High School (by Cecily von Ziegesar)
Vigorous Jack London–esque survival tale about Paul Ryan after his one-man kayak capsizes in the Potomac (by Cormac McCarthy)
Magical realist fable about Paul Ryan, whose one-man kayak capsizes in the Potomac, and Vice President Joe Trident, the merman who comes to his aid (by Karen Russell)
Jane Sanders on her wedding day (by Curtis Sittenfeld)
Lewis Carollian fantasy laying out the wackadoo topography and curious customs of the Republican House and Senate (by Gregory Maguire)
Elizabeth Warren/Huma Abedin/Notorious RBG superhero comic (by Ta-Nehisi Coates)
Coming-of-age tween fiction written from the perspective of the Cruz daughter who obviously hates her dad (by Judy Blume)
Dill Blinton, a once-great chief executive, juggles work, the media, fatherhood, and his marriage to a powerful, distracted woman. Can he keep it all together? (by Helen Fielding)
Dystopian short story in which every unpatriotic thought you have is downloaded to Hillary Clinton’s private email server and then turns into a lobster (by N.K. Jemisin)
A twentysomething newly minted news anchor named Megyn Kelly goes to interview a charismatic, majestically coiffed multibillionaire and falls for him when he sweeps her away in a helicopter for a whirlwind affair in an S&M dungeon made of marble and gold (by Donald Trump)
