The 2016 presidential election has been so unlike other modern elections it’s almost seemed more like a work of fiction. To highlight that, the New York Times commissioned Americanah author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to write a short story about the election. Adichie chose to write a fan fiction-type story about the Trumps – specifically, Melania Trump as she prepares for a visit from her parents in the middle of her husband’s runaway political campaign.
There’s plenty of great stuff in the piece, titled “The Arrangements,” from Melania’s bristling relationship with her step-daughter Ivanka to Adichie’s literary plumbing of an enigmatic woman’s psychology. The best part, however, probably comes when Melania receives a text from her husband: “I’m leading in the latest poll. National! Nice!”
“It was probably what he had tweeted as well,” Adichie’s fictional Melania thinks to herself. “He copied and pasted his tweets to her in text messages. Once she had suggested he hold back on a tweet and he replied that he had already tweeted it. He showed her his tweets after he had sent them, not before.
That is so great! she texted back.”
Read the full story here.
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