U.S.!: Songs and Stories

by Chris Bachelder

In this hilarious and wildly inventive novel, Chris Bachelder brings Upton Sinclair back from the dead to see what he might make of our modern world.

U.S.! is a playful, darkly comic novel that imagines the serial resurrection and assassination of tireless muckraker Upton Sinclair. In Chris Bachelder's bizarre world, Sinclair is repeatedly brought back by beleaguered but optimistic leftists (whose refrain is "Hope and Shovels Forever"), and then gunned down (and once harpooned!) by those seeking fame, fortune, and American business as usual. As he grows more and more politically and culturally insignificant, Sinclair keeps writing his embarrassingly bad muckraking novels and keeps risking his life for the Socialist revolution, which is perpetually just around the corner.

In documenting the demise (but dogged faith) of the American Left, as well as the violence and hysteria of the Right, Bachelder uses a wide range of forms: stories, songs, letters, journal entries, book reviews, memos, a syllabus, newspaper and magazine articles, Internet auctions, and transcripts of talk shows, interviews, and toll-free hotlines. The second part of the novel is a fast-paced narrative that brings the myriad characters together in an explosive encounter. A dazzling mix of laughs and revelations, U.S.! is not only an exploration of American politics and culture, but an investigation into the possibilities and problems of political art. Its publication will coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the publication of The Jungle, Sinclair's internationally renowned novel about the meat industry.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Humor, Literary Fiction, Politics, American, Comedy

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Chris Bachelder is the author of Bear V. Shark, U.S.!: Songs and Stories, Abbott Awaits, and The Throwback Special. His fiction and essays have appeared in McSweeney’s, The Believer, and the Paris Review. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Cincinnati, where he teaches at the University of Cincinnati.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Original Review:

Touching satire about poor old utopian socialist Upton Sinclair and his habit of being shot and resurrected by avid left-wingers intent on egalitarianism. Bachelder is a keen Barthesian and uses playful PoMo techniques, among them lists of Sinclair’s unreviewed Amazon books, items listed on ebay, and assorted epistolary games. The first half of the novel has no structure as such, merely following Sinclair as he battles his hopeless but noble cause. The second half of the novel is more purposeful, and riffs on the political thriller, taking the stock assassination scene to absurd heights (there are a dozen assassins attempting to kill Sinclair) during a Bradburyian book-burning. I can’t quite place the book’s politics since Bachelder takes the piss out of everyone and everything. So I suppose this is the perfect stocking-filler for the despairing political cynic in your life. See also Bear V. Shark.

Books Whose Titles Would Change Considerably With the Addition of an Exclamation Mark:

To Kill a Mockingbird!
Things Fall Apart!
Bleak House!
Poor Folk!
Crash!
Crime & Punishment!
The Holy Bible!
The Murder of Kurt Cobain!
Malcolm X!
Wuthering Heights!
Rebecca!
The Diary of a Young Girl!
Dead Souls!
Choke!
The End of Everything!

[Rayroy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better then Bear V. Shark, the second part of the novel was brillant and fast paced! What makes U.S.! so good, is how well Chris Bachelder writes Upton Sinclar as a hopelessly opitmistic Socialist curseder, who's come back to life in persent day America, and is funny and very likeable to anyone that picks up U.S.! even if that person were Ayn Rand!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Darrin Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

An impressive book that takes a comical premise -- the left-wing keeps resurrecting Upton Sinclair, and he keeps getting assassinated -- and turns it into a smart, incisive satire with some pathos thrown in, too. Comparisons to Saunders are appropriate, but this is its own animal, and in lots of ways it surpasses Saunders, in my opinion.

[Johnny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Upton Sinclair’s novels are “preachy” with their socialist idealism and relatively predictable plots. But from my high school experience with The Jungle through my college exploration of The Goose Step: A Study of Higher Education to my occasional forays into King Coal, Oil!, The Moneychangers, and snagging an old copy of Co-Op at a used bookstore, there has been a definite attraction to his passionate propaganda as novels, even though I am not a socialist and don’t think socialism works. So, when I read that U.S.! begins with the corpse of Upton Sinclair in the backseat of a car, I was intrigued and immediately sought this strange literary work of Chris Bachelder.

Unlike Sinclair’s work, Bachelder’s novel doesn’t seem to have any expectation of enlightening the reader on socialist ideals. U.S.! is a parody with supernatural overtones and the overall effect of a black comedy. If you didn’t like Catch-22, you won’t like U.S.!. And while Bachelder seems sympathetic toward Sinclair’s efforts, he makes no effort to hide the flaws of this prolific activist of the early 20th century. He notes the failures of most of Sinclair’s novels (with a few notable exceptions, of course). This was particularly vivid on pp. 78-84 when he lists real and imagined novels of Upton Sinclair as if on a web page full of book reviews. Though there are some clever faux-reviews, what is telling is the number which have the typical web comment: “Be the first to review this book.” At one point, Sinclair (more accurately a “reboot” of Sinclair) is imprisoned and, with a delightful inside joke to the reader, his cellmate confuses him with another muckraker, Sinclair Lewis (of Main Street, It Can’t Happen Here, Babbit, Arrowsmith, Dodsworth, and Elmer Gantry fame). At another point, we read the history of the cacophonous rock band, Ezra Pound Postcard, named after an ALL CAPS and profane screed from the poet which was directed at Sinclair (pp. 113-115).

I mentioned the supernatural overtones and, at the risk of spoiling, I need to explain that Upton Sinclair keeps being dug up from his graves by well-intentioned activists. The hope seems to be reigniting a socialist revolution, but the overall effect is that he keeps getting assassinated over and over again, like a video game reboot where one has multiple or infinite lives. In fact, with Bachelder’s amazing satirical power, one chapter is even a rejection letter of a video game with the same basic concept as the novel. For me, having covered the computer game industry for so long, it was spot-on hilarious with its too close for comfort depiction of the shallowness of focus groups (I saw this on both the computer game side and the board game side) and callous cowardice of what I once called the “Merry Marketeers. In fact, I once remember sharing with the Microsoft Flight Simulator team that the core gamers in our audience didn’t consider their product a true game because you couldn’t shoot anything.

I loved his categorization of the type of semi-friends that you call up in the middle of the night because you’re in “a little trouble.” He writes of those who have to ask, “What kind of trouble?” that those, “…whose response is conditional, tentative, based on some if-then ethical matrix and an overriding respect for authority—these are not the people you ever want to tell that you are in a little trouble, if you can help it.” (p. 41) In the same chapter, I couldn’t resist noting how the puns in the following sentence reflect the overall atmosphere of the book (despite its dark but effective humor): “The car broke down in Montana and we spent two nights in the sort of dumpy hotel whose name is a euphemism for death. Journey’s End or Dun Rovin or End of the Road.” (p. 43) Later, I laughed at the unexpected when Sinclair admits he didn’t want another child and supposed his son, Albert, the folk singer, could have turned out worse. To which, his secretary responds, “He could have been a banker.” (p. 252)

In between the narrative accounts, Bachelder has placed intriguing bits of creative weirdness. Earlier, I mentioned the non-book review book reviews, but there are also Upton Sinclair haiku (from an imagined fad in Japan—pp. 100-101), a parody of Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” (pp. 92-93), an Internet interview with a contemporary artist named Treadway who had created a pop culture installation of nude paintings of Sinclair displayed as a centerfold (pp. 87-91), a television show transcript of a panel discussions on experts on Sinclair assassins (pp. 147-155), a “map” key to the imagined Museum of Upton Sinclair Assassination (pp. 165-167),

Fiction, even fiction loosely constructed around historical figures or situations, has a remarkable tendency to uncover unexpected facts for the curious reader. In my case, a reference to Lt. Frederick Garrison as a nom de plume Upton Sinclair allegedly used when writing pulp adventures before his more well-known muckraking novels (p. 257) surprised me enough to discover that Upton Sinclair wrote pulp adventure stories for juveniles under both the Lt. Frederick Garrison and Ensign Clark Fitch bylines. I found one called “Author’s Adventure” and plan to look for more.

Except for the epilogue, the last portion of the book is straight narrative. Sinclair believes he is attending a 4th of July picnic in his honor while he is really headed toward a book burning of his latest book. I saw a blurb on this book that labeled it hopeful. The book ends in a bittersweet with a sliver of hope like daylight seeping into my basement. To be honest, I enjoyed U.S.!, but Bachelder is not the kind of writer from whom I’d like a steady diet of his work.

[Gregory Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book for beginning to understand the works of Upton Sinclair. Some believe the American left died with him. A lighthearted, funny homage to a great writer and leader. Remember, the last chapter of The Jungle is a roadmap and proposal for how socialism would possibly work in America. I need to reread The Jungle. Maybe even Oil! ("There Will Be Blood"), after that.

[J.A.]

Yes, please. I'm in love with the way Bachelder plays with structure and takes a unique idea so far forward, so fast, and with such ease.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book as a sort of "double feature," reading it immediately after I had read The Jungle. I highly recommend it.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

On the surface, U.S.! is similar to Mark Binelli's Sacco and Vanzetti Must Die: a "real" re-imagined historical person(s) as subject of a crazy-quilt collage of forms.

Bachelder succeeds where Binelli falls short, partly because Bachelder doesn't ask the reader to superimpose his appropriated "character" onto a "real world" that exists only outside of the book. Everything that you need to know about Upton Sinclair (for this book to work) is right here. Binelli takes a more restrained, cautious route with his Sacco and Vanzetti (only bits and pieces from the trial transcripts and from letters that one or the other write appear in his book), and as a result, the sense that you even really understand what world it is that Binelli is describing is lost. There is simply not enough there, there.

Because ultimately I think that Binelli and Bachelder were after different things, I won't carry the comparison any further. I will say that U.S.! is very, very funny at times, and that the satire is pretty clear and pretty clever. Bachelder manages his many different forms pretty well. I only give this book four stars because I believe that he might have made better use of many of them (which is not to say that he didn't make better use of them than most writers who go in for this sort of appropriation do), and because I think that the second part (the long narrative of the book-burning) is essentially Bachelder throwing in the towel when he realizes that he can't get a story told through the "scrapbook" approach of the first book.

It is a difficult to balance, on the one hand, the need to more or less perfectly mimic the form that you are appropriating, and on the other, the need to "tell a story" through that form (or the succession of different forms). How often do you read a shopping list or a class syllabus that tells a story? Really, really be honest with yourself: not that often. And if it did tell a story, you would suspect that its motives were precisely to tell a story, and thus you would be less likely to mistake it for the form that it is supposed to ape. And yet you will extend some of that courtesy to a writer like Bachelder or Binelli. Their job is simply not to tilt their hand so much that you can't maintain that particular fiction for yourself in reading them.

But those forms, in the real world, are static, for the most part-- they can't, when strictly imitated by fiction, really "move," really tell a story, complete with rising action, climax, etc. It is the reader that must provide these for him or herself outside of, and through, the form; the person who follows that shopping list or class syllabus that then lives that "story," that potentially narratable experience.

Binelli fails in this respect, because, having chosen to follow his forms, he declines to tell a story; Bachelder abandons his forms to tell his story. In the end, Bachelder's book is the more compelling because it does tell a story, but that does not make it a better book. There is still ground to be covered, in both books: walking that thin line between imitating the form and telling a story, that ridge that is the author's realization that the reader must be allowed both the space to imagine him or herself encountering that form as in the real world, and the reader having enough information in front of her that she can safely make the leap between peaks, until finally she has the entire chain of Freytag's triangles behind her and the story has been told.

[Josh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Imagine if Upton Sinclair, the great Socialist novelist, author of The Jungle and 1934 Democratic candidate for Governor of California, were brought back to life today to comment on the modern world of strip malls, drug companies and high school wrestling. And then imagine if he were assassinated. And then imagine if he were brought back to life again, and then assassinated again, and then brought back to life…

OK. It’s not the most obvious premise for a novel.

But with U.S., Chris Bachelder makes it work. More than work: It’s hard to think of a better political novel from the past few years.

Without ever quite spelling it out, Bachelder has written a parable for the relationship of the Left with its heroic past. Like any inspired conceit, the revived Sinclair takes on a life of his own, functioning both as allegory and as plot driver. It’s easy to read through the book (as I do here) in terms of what it says about the American left, but it reads (like Sinclair’s books were supposed to, whether or not they ever did) just as much as a page-turning adventure story.

What do we want from our political forebears, anyway? Bachelder’s Sinclair is the cheerful, literal-minded, slightly unworldly, tireless, humor-impaired, good-natured, occasionally infuriating older activist all of us involved in left politics have crossed paths with. He has all the virtues of the ‘30s; he carries an aura of heroism with him along with dirt of the grave. And come on, if you’re reading this, I know you’ve felt that’s exactly what’s missing from your life.

The book has all the postmodern devices, first-person narrative interspersed with imagined reviews of imagined Sinclair novels, transcripts, letters, and EBay listings. But I tend to think the book owes more to the USA trilogy than to David Foster Wallace. And anyway, whatever postmodern elements it incorporates, it’s quite free of postmodern irony. Sinclair’s appeals for Socialism may be stilted, old-fashioned, unconvincing: well, that strand of politics hasn’t left much of a usable legacy: but Bachelder doesn’t leave much doubt that, as far he’s concerned, it’s still right.

[Ted Burke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chris Bachelder is a lovable prankster who likes to turn the nicely fitting glove of literature inside out. while the rest of us are looking for meanings and various forms of significance in the interior decorating of conventional fictional devices--to this day, we all yearn to have poets and novelists to tell us The Truth-- Bachelder prefers to spray paint on the props and show us the cluttered backstage of these settings. And better yet, he rather likes in tying the shoelaces together of the pompous, the serious, the bizarrely sanctimonious. "U.S.!" has him imagining a world where the true believers in an American Socialist Revolution manage, through some vaguely revealed ritual of magic realism, to bring the dead activist novelist Upton Sinclair back to life; back to life the poor, steadfast, solemn socialist does, looking increasingly awful and putrid at the edges, going on the lecture trail, writing and publishing more of his cardboard narratives, trying to convince an amazingly uninterested citizenry the exact nature of what's killing them. Nothing comes of this, as expected, and the intrepid Lewis finds himself talking himself hoarse , only to find himself being killed violently and then ingloriously resurrected yet again.

A surreal fish-out-of-water story, Bachelder has a perfect ear for duplicating the static prose of the late novelists, and excels at demonstrating the striking contrasts between those who think that literature can make populations shed their entrenched and deeply rooted versions of Bad Faith and rise to the selfless cause of The Common People; this is a story of where the idea of the progression of history toward a final and just time, intersects with a culture where history does not end anywhere at all. Rather, it splits off into many tributaries, a crossroads every five metaphorical miles. Sinclair Lewis, tragicomic figure he is, stops at each of them, scratching his head as to which road to take.

[Trin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Upton Sinclair, author of The Jungle and dozens of other books advocating socialism and social reform, is resurrected periodically to fight the good fight—resurrected and assassinated, both with bullets and bad press. This is not only an incredibly imaginative novel, it's an incredibly imaginative political novel, that touches on how hard it is to keep fighting for what you believe in such a fucked up world. The story is told first in fragments—snatches of narrative interspersed with letters and jokes and interview clips and songs—and then with a climactic narrative showdown in a small American town. Bachelder does an amazing job making everyone—even, at times, various assassins and other unlikable folk—sympathetic, while also keeping them realistically flawed. Sinclair—as Bachelder portrays him and as he doubtless was in real life—is far, far from a saint; he's mostly just a tired old man. As someone who at 23 already feels exhausted with the political machine, I found this book incredibly moving and painful and funny and inspiring. It's far more interesting and weird than I could possibly describe it. You should give it a read.

[Jeff Laughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I were forced to choose between the books this man has written, I couldn't. Reading this book makes one feel hopelessly lost yet eager and attentive simultaneously. Quite an accomplishment. I recommend the author HIGHLY.

[Brent Legault · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wooden and weak and worst of all, dull. Much in the spirit of Upton Sinclair! I suggest you read the article that Bachelder published in The Believer (http://www.believermag.com/issues/200...). It is far superior to this watery grave of a novel.

[Kevin Luy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Funny and thoughtful.
It feels like the kind of political satire people give Chris Buckley credit for writing.
Fans of Vonnegut might like it for the humor and style.
The chapter about Sinclair and Doctorow's meeting is genius, and a pure delight.

[Sarahjane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. The tension between its reverence for those who believe in utopia and the recognition of the deadening effects of so much rhetoric, the language and sense of fun, the commitment to its ridiculous premise, everything.

[Ben Loory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stephen had only slept three hours, and when he awoke, on the floor with the novel on his chest, he found that nothing in his life was the same. He felt that the book had been a strange dream and that he was still trapped within it.

[Andrew Barnes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fav book I’ve read so far this year. Bachelder is one of the most incisive, genuinely funny writers we have and few books I’ve encountered have captured the absurdity of our country or the well meaning ineptitude of the left. Hope and shovels forever.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely one of the stranger books I've read this year, but also one of the best. To a certain degree the book is limited by it's central gimmick -- real-life Socialist muckraking writer Upton Sinclair (about whom the reader need know nothing) keeps returning from the dead to spread the good word about the working man's struggle for a decent life. He "keeps" returning from the dead because every time he comes back, there are glory-seekers determined to put him back under in order to protect America from godless Socialism. If this sounds like some piece of strange science-fiction, well, it kind of is. But it's mainly a satire of the contemporary American political scene, with Sinclair standing in for the far left. But even more than that, it's a very clever and funny piece of satire -- which is rare indeed.

Bachelder wisely recognizes the limitations of his premise, and thus engages it in a very loose manner by riffing on it in lots of different formats. There is a running storyline concerning this iteration of the undead Sinclair, as he moves around the country aided by his secretary/personal assistant, holing up in remote cabins to write, and making clandestine visits to underground meetings. However, sprinkled into this are letters from Sinclair to his son, Amazon.com reviews of some of Sinclair's 90 books (most of which bear the dreaded "Be the first to review this item."), transcripts from a 1-800 "I Saw Sinclair" hotline, hilarious memos (including one from Sinclair to NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabule about the need for instant replay), a reading list and syllabus for a writing course taught by Sinclair, newspaper editorials, interviews, an eBay auction listing (for a bullet that killed Sinclair), song lyrics, and other such artifacts of popular culture.

As we learn more about Sinclair, we also learn more about the cult of celebrity that has arisen around his killers. Indeed, the main story thread leads Sinclair toward a small town celebration (he thinks it's to honor him, but it's actually to burn his books), where the country's top Sinclair hunters (many of whom have been hired by corporate interests) hope to bag him. There's a great little subplot about the grizzled old veteran killer vs. the brash young upstart. There's another subplot involving Sinclair's folk singer son which suffers a bit from underdevelopment.

But beneath all this, there's a clear message -- the bumbling, almost unbearably earnest, permanently outraged, ever-pedantic Sinclair is a symbol of all that's wrong with the American left and yet paradoxically, also what's right. Although Sinclair's neverending sub-mediocre writing is mercilessly skewered throughout the book, his dogged dedication to (and faith in) an ideal is both touching and ultimately inspiring. This is another major theme of the book, the intersection of art and politics, and the difficulty faced by the artist who dares to mix the two. Bachelder's book manages the tricky task of both doing this and commenting on it at the same time, while shifting ably between slapstick comedy, family pathos, blind zealotry, pop culture riffing, and even moments of quiet reflection. This is both an entertaining and excellent novel.

[Anita]

You know I still don’t understand this book I think if I had a fever dream about the essay I was supposed to write about “political novels” in grade 12 and then wrote down the pieces of the fever dream and then wrote some songs about it and also some good jokes, it would be this book.

Cheng gave this book to me in junior year of college (I think) and said “I think you’ll like this” and I’ve been carrying it around for years bc you can’t not read a book someone personally gives to you and says “hey I thought about the type of books u like and then I thought about this book and I think you would be a match.” So it’s been a long time coming!

The basic plot is, Upton Sinclair is dying and being resurrected all over the place, all the time, because he’s socialist and wants to spread the socialist gospel. “A specter is haunting Europe…” Bachelder does a good head fake w the obvious analogies and allegories and book-within-a-book revelations, it’s all shaping up to be a real Agenda-Driven Political Novel, and then he hits me w a story of a dad who took his savings and bought his kid a saxophone when they moved to a new town, to help his kid be cool and meet new friends, and the kid is just bad at saxophone, so he stops playing and hides it in the closet, and one day years later the kid opens the closet and the sax is gone, the dad sold it. U really could not have written a better little side-tale to really soften me up on this book. That and the conversation b/t Upton and his own son at the end. Am I…basic??

Anyway, it was good, I liked it, I finally read it, thank god, crossing off a 7yr old to do list item, that’s the theme of 2021 Q3

[Auggy · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 rounded up. The first part - which is the bulk of the book - is hilarious but also at times heart-wrenching. Five stars all the way for this section, partly because I love the variety of format - narrative interspaced with interviews, book reviews, song lyrics, phone call transcriptions… I love that kind of thing. There wasn’t much to any overall tension to this part of the book because of that and the fact that there’s no real plot line we are following. I loved reading it but if I set it down, I didn’t have a burning desire to pick it back up to see what happens next. But I consider that a trade off for the multi-format thing so no dings for it. Plus, I enjoyed it so much while I was reading it, I didn’t need the “what’s next?” question in my mind for me to pick it back up.

The last 100 pages, which make up Part Two, are all narrative and have a definite plot so the tension ramps up a bit but the humor is unfortunately gone. Yes, it is still very satirical but it becomes sad instead of funny. Or perhaps pitiable. Still very good, interesting, and well-written but without the same spark that made the first part so special. Half a star off for that since I wasn’t able to finish the book with the feeling of “that was amazing” that I held during Part One.

Ultimately though, this book cements the fact that I will be reading Bachelder again.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

The great U.S. just won't die.
In Bacheldor's U.S., political literary icon, Upton Sinclair, is the constantly reincarnating target of conservative discontent. The stories (more like beautifully crafted literary anecdotes all strung together) skip around time and perspective as Sinclair tries to constantly avoid assassination. The overblown muckraker stirs the political pot, writes and inspires grit in wide-eyed Americans to DO SOMETHING. The character is heartbreakingly loveable and hateable at the same time - a sentiment shared by all of his ambitious young male secretaries (don't get your sexual hopes up). His annoyingly blind devotion to his cause and craft make appealing the most American in us, but also make him a terrible father. Tsk hm. Bacheldor is undoubtedly a king of craft, able to wrench emotion out of a dank basement while layering plots like baklava phyllo dough. The ending was sentimental, neatly tied in all the right places and pleasant to put down. Bear vs. Shark is waiting for me next.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is basically divided into to sections-
1. a strange multi-perspective, multi-format, mish mash of stories of Upton Sinclair coming back from the dead at various points in time, what he did at those times, and how people kept murdering him.
2. A comic-novella of one time he returns and how a series of ridiculous events coincide to both leave him alive for a change, but also to make him want to retire.
The first section is fun, often non-sensical, and rather beating it into you about how ridiculous Upton Sinclair is, how ridiculous the people of America are, and how much the author likes playing with the conventions of a novel. It's a fun read, but it doesn't really do anything new, outside of the bizarre "plot".
The second section is a pretty funny story, and as far as satires go, a pretty direct hit to Middle America, although nowadays I'm not sure if Americans are quite as anti-Socialist as they used to be.

[David N · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the multimedia pastiche of the first section a bit overwrought, but the ending was excellent. I read this novel with a basic understanding of Sinclair and the American left, and a vested political bias towards the same. I wonder if a politically apathetic reader would connect with the tragedy of the American left in the same way. There's a passage late in the book where a character is exposed to the precepts of socialism for the first time by reading Sinclair's novels, and is forever changed. He's received a skeleton key for decoding the way society is actually built, and the dissonance it creates with the abiding capitalist political dogma. The passage replicated my own experience perfectly.

[Dana Van Ostrand · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bachelder's political cynicism plays interestingly well as US Democracy devolves into spinelessness and demagoguery. I read this book before and after watching a debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, reminding me that envisioning a new way to build our society in new and more equal ways is further away than I would hope, than Sinclair would hope.

Ultimately, I'm a sucker for Bachelder's meta style and would probably eat up any book he writes. Being a cynical white guy with an interest in politics and a disillusionment with capitalism probably helps. It does us favors, to be honest. It's not so lonely out here sometimes.

[Danny · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would definitely recommend brushing up on Upton Sinclair's biography before starting in on this book. If all you know is that he wrote The Jungle, too many of the humorous jabs of Bachelder's satire will fail to land as successfully as they should. The quickly paced first half offers a different comic experiment every few pages, and most of them worked very well for me. The 2nd half unspools in a more standard novel form which left me a little underwhelmed, but mostly satisfied. An absurd novel for cynical times, especially the Trump era where American democracy has "jumped the shark"

[Chase · Rating 5 out of 5]

A red Hydra of a novel, telling the story, in scraps and songs and syllabi, of Upton Sinclair, unkillable Socialist agitator, and those who support him and those who wish him dead (and who succeed in killing him again, and again, and again). That's as simple a summary as I can come up with, but the real joy of this book is Bachelder's extravagant sense of style, his limitless humor, his eerily prescient political statements. This novel was published in 2006, but I can't imagine reading a story more relevant to 2018. Maybe that's the idea --- the story is always relevant.

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is positively whack.
It took me a while to comprehend what was going on, but once it clicked in, I became just astonished by the creative shotgun approach.

That makes it decidedly uneven in places, but it’s been a long time since I have laughed out loud as hard and often as with this book.

It’s just so clever and OUT THERE that it’s really fun and even interesting, too.

Best served with an accompanying visit from John Barleycorn.

[Mattschratz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been thinking a lot about losing lately, for obvious reasons, and what losing means. There are few things more heartening then than this book, written in the depths of the Bush presidency, and its imagination of the left as constantly resurrecting and believing in the earnest, often assassinated Upton Sinclair, with his exclamation points, his metric system, and his shovels.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uniquely odd premise that's handled as if it's the most everyday, normal thing imaginable. Which in the hands of this author is very funny. As well as being a pretty scathing satire of all things capitalistic. The writing is very good and kind of laid back in a way I liked a lot.

[Marissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF p.~100? I wasn't NOT enjoying this, but when the bookmark fell out and I put the whole book down, I literally could not find my place in again because the form of the story is so postmodern/disjointed (tohmaytoe/tohmahtoh, there). Maybe it's good, I don't know, I moved on.