Staten
Island, NY, USA -- Donald Trump's presidential campaign has
unwittingly resurrected a literary novel in which the fictionalized
version of the candidate undergoes sex change surgery to wreak social
and political havoc. Monsieur le 6, a hilarious but powerful
mashup of sex and politics which could not find a publisher when
author John Simmons first composed it, will debut as an eBook in time
for the election (Apple River Press, $2.99).
Several
characters in the novel originally bore made-up names, said Simmons,
the author of several novels and works of nonfiction. "With
Trump running for president, and other characters in the novel
now dead, the masks can come off," said Simmons. Other roles in
the satiric send-up of contemporary politics belong to former Mayor
of New York Ed Koch and his Commissioner of Consumer Affairs,
Bess Myerson, with appearances by George H. W. Bush,
Cardinal John J. O'Connor, and Jimmy Swaggart.
Monsieur
le 6 might have remained on a shelf in Simmons' closet but
for the outsized and outrageous success of candidate Trump together
with an unintended assist from The New York Times columnist
Frank Bruni, who
published an op-ed, "If Donald Trump Changed Genders," on
February 27, 2016. That reminded Simmons that his fictionalized Trump
instigated the novel's most outrageous conceit - genitals exchanged
in high places.
As
high satire, Monsieur le 6 brings the Marquis de Sade
to bear on American politics. Sade, famous for his pornographic
works, wrote extensively about politics. Simmons also relied on
Herman Melville's famed The Confidence Man to insure an
American feel and context. Today the novel's
ripped-from-the-headlines content should have even greater appeal.
Besides the intersection of sex and political corruption, themes
include mass incarceration, abortion, urban poverty, and police
brutality.
Monsieur
le 6 may shock today just as it did in the early 1990s, says
Simmons. "The San Francisco publisher City Lights, which had
done Allen Ginsberg's Howl, wanted to publish but
decided it could not. The novel acquired nice rejection letters
although some agents were less than enthusiastic. One suggested that,
as with Nabokov's Lolita, the novel be stored under a
rock for a thousand years."
• For
more information, including author interviews, contact:
appleriver@monsieurle6.com
• About
the Author: John Simmons is the author of 4 previous novels (The
Sharing, Cried the Piper, Lamplighter, and Midnight Walking) and
several works of nonfiction. He was the recipient of a grant from the
National Endowment of the Arts in 2011; he and his wife, Jocelyne
Barque, are currently completing translation of Aline and Valcour,
a monumental novel by Marquis de Sade.
• Links:
Media
Contact:
John
Galbraith Simmons
718-524-6345
