Watch out, Holy Bible! Step aside, Don Quixote! Former President Donald Trump saya he’s writing “the book of all books.” Despites his attempts to build hype, obstacles loom. The first is that he’s likely to be the least reliable narrator since Patrick Bateman in “American Psycho.” And that was a work of fiction.
Memoirs are meant to be grounded in truth, particularly presidential ones. But just as Trump governed outside many norms, anything he produces in book form is likely to fall outside the boundaries of nonfiction. Indeed, whatever he publishes should be regarded as fake news until proven otherwise. Remember, this is the man who, according to The Washington Post, made more than 30,000 false and misleading claims while in office. He also formented a violent attack on the Capitol with baseless claims of election fraud.
Where the former President’s memoir is concerned, the foundational misleading claim is that he’s currently “writing like crazy,” which he released in a statement last week. Notorious for being called “The President who Doesn’t Read” by The Atlantic, Trump is famously impatient with the written word — a necessary skill for outlining a book, not to mention the actual penning of it. Previous books decorated with his name have been produced by ghostwriters, and given the way he treated ghost writer Meredith McIver, he may have trouble finding one this time.
