The D.C. newspaper novel, the media, the Washington area, tech and other surrealism: David Rothman at large
I call it the ScandalsBot. If you ask what Washington sleaze inspired The Solomon Scandals, the bot will oblige. The bot can also compare my corruption novel with All the President’s Men and other Washington books, or it can explain why I mixed genres rather than just writing suspense. What’s more, it can lay out […]
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Does your stomach churn if a novel mixes genres? As the author of The Solomon Scandals, I cheerfully plead guilty. My book blends suspense, naturalism, and satire. The goal is to entertain but also explore the oft-bizarre realities of Washington as a white-collar factory town. Scandals is not a quick beach read. But I won’t […]
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The November 2023 edition of The Solomon Scandals doesn’t just have an improved cover and a new essay on the difference between my fiction and the actual history inspiring the novel. This second edition also has a hardback version. Here is a detailed PDF of the dust jacket, designed by Nate Allison at Hidden Gems […]
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Just 63 percent of U.S. high school graduates enrolled directly in college in 2020—a decline from 70 percent just four years earlier. What’s going on? Covid? And maybe more temptation to go directly to the shop or assembly line, given a booming job market? Well, it’s a little more complicated than just Covid, and besides, […]
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One bloody American Civil War is enough. The cannons I photographed this week are at Fort Ward in Alexandria, Virginia, just a walk from my place. They inspire reflection. The best way to prevent Civil War II—-scary enough even as an unlikely possibility—is to punish President Trump and other psychopathic officials for treason and countless […]
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Got a beef with establishment Democrats? I do—more than a few. I worked for a once-thriving factory town newspaper in Ohio that today operates out of a hamburger stand. Bipartisan trade policies over the years were toxic to the local steel industry without the workers getting the much-ballyhooed retraining that free trade boosters talked about. […]
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Herbert Hoover didn’t singlehandedly cause the Great Depression, but he fumbled in his efforts to fix the American economy. One upshot was the name given the shantytowns housing hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken Americans. “Hoovervilles” popped up near free soup kitchens. Should Donald Trump now face similar obloquy, by way of the term “Trump Virus”? […]
Read MoreA nuclear bomb from China or North Korea—that’s how I expected to die if Donald Trump was too inept to handle a major crisis. The Trump-worsened coronavirus threat is so prosaic by comparison. No, this monster-buffoon didn’t cause the virus, but thousands of Americans may die unnecessarily because he downplayed the threat early on, and […]
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I’m proud of my vote for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary. As an FDR Democrat, how could I have acted otherwise? Roosevelt gave us huge public works projects when we needed them — but, like Sanders, he was far from a Stalin or Castro. Contrary to hints from his enemies, Sanders is not […]
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Do you remember the start of The Social Network? In the 2010 movie, future Facebook tycoon Mark Zuckerberg gets an earful from the Boston University coed who’s been dating him. “You are probably going to be a very successful computer person,” Erica says in response to his social and intellectual snobbery. “But you’re going to […]
Read MoreBillionaires are not always the most lovable people. Remember the Silicon Valley venture capitalist who said wealthy Americas were victims of persecution, just like Jews in Nazi Germany? Oh, the horrors! Our super-rich are so jeopardized that only three billionaires, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, are together wealthier than the lower half of our population if we […]
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In Blowout, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow plumbs the toxic influence of the oil and gasoline industries on the economies and governments of Russia, the United States and other countries. Energy companies free of constraints can be harmful to your homeland’s economic and civic health, and Vladimir Putin’s Russia just might be Exhibit Number One. Here’s a […]
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