Interface: A Novel

by Neal Stephenson

The name of the show was Coming on Strong. Earl Strong kept coming on, week after week, year after year. It seemed that every time she happened to flip past his little program, he looked a little different: he did something about those crooked teeth. Got his chin lengthened. Fixed the nose. Bought a narrower and more conservative set of neckties. Played endlessly with his hairstyle until he found one—close-cropped but carefully sculpted—that worked. Bought himself a chair that did not creak. Moved to a better studio, got a two-camera setup, then a three-camera setup. Got commercial sponsorship from Ty (Buckaroo) Steele, a prominent local purveyor of cut-rate used cars, and made the jump from public-access cable to one of the local commercial stations. And at each step of the process, Eleanor laughed and shook her head, remembering him curled up on the floor in her living room, sucking in short little breaths, and she wondered how long it would take for this man to be found out for the shabby little fraud he really was. Each time he attained a little more success, Eleanor was shocked for a moment, even a little frightened. Then she calmed herself down by reminding herself that the higher he got, the harder he would fall in the end. Surely someone would take it upon themselves to expose this man. But no one ever did. And then, all of a sudden, Earl Strong was running for the United States Senate, he was ahead in the polls, and everyone loved him.