As Dave Eggers’s novella begins, the citizens of the great ship Glory are electing a new captain. Instead of choosing an experienced crew member, they pick “the man with the yellow feather in his hair”, a notorious swindler whose previous job was selling cheap souvenirs at the putt-putt golf course and who is best known for blurting out anything that comes into his head. A voter explains: “We need someone … to shake things up.” Soon the Captain has thrown out the rule book, plus all the other books, and is treating citizens to constant updates on the greatness of his penis. He also initiates a campaign of persecution aimed at Certain People – refugees, once magnanimously welcomed aboard, now terrorised, arrested and summarily drowned.
The Trump presidency has been exhaustively assailed by satirists, and it’s not Eggers’s fault if this parable feels overfamiliar. That he nonetheless makes his story engaging, disturbing and sometimes genuinely funny is a testament to his skill as a writer. This, combined with the pleasure many take in seeing Trump lampooned, will make the book a reliable stocking-filler in left-leaning homes.
That said, it’s mostly composed of the easiest jokes available: Trump as ignoramus, Trump as fat man, Trump as man-baby, Trump wanting to sleep with his daughter, Trump turning into a breathless teenage girl at the approach of the manly Putin. The Republican party doesn’t exist in the world of the novella, and the Captain’s policies have no history; before his elevation, there was no racism on the Glory at all. The voters who elect him are gullible innocents who only want a change. It is possible this is meant to subtly mock people who believe impeaching Trump is all that’s needed to Make America Great Again, but the few who still harbour this belief will finish the book reassured that Eggers agrees. The broad comedy also becomes jarring as the mass murders of foreigners and dissidents escalate, culminating in a dinner thrown by a Kim Jong-un figure that features a hollowed-out corpse turned into a trough for guacamole. The cartoon gore feels dehumanising when the authoritarians being satirised have real victims.
In general, it is successful as a gift book, whose better jokes can be read aloud to approving chuckles after Christmas dinner. As a significant satire of the political crisis in America, it falls woefully short.
