Oh, Hey, I Guess I Have A Novella About the Kanye/Trump Meeting Out Today — It Turns Out the Naming Rights! Membership Option Was For Real and Someone Is Now Five Hundred Bucks Poorer Presents Nat

Like most progressives, when I discovered that Kanye West was talking up Donald Trump in his increasingly erratic/cancelled concerts, and then visited the President-Elect in Trump Tower last year I was surprised, if not shocked, and disappointed. I consider Kanye one of our greatest and most important artists. His music, particularly The College Dropout and “Touch the Sky” have affected me deeply.

For years, I would ritualistically listen to “Touch the Sky” before sending out an important email. It was my good luck charm and due to this superstition, and only this superstition, for a little while there, I did okay. Tricked some folks into thinking I was a big shot. So when I saw that Kanye was flirting with hopping onboard the Trump Train I was worried and chagrined, even as I sensed that Kanye might see this whole strange public display of support for the Evil Orange as some manner of Warholian performance art.

I did not want a genius like Kanye to go over to the dark side. So while I was filled with a progressive Kanye lover/apologist’s usual complicated emotions, I felt what I imagine is a fairly unusual emotion as well: I felt like I understood where Kanye was coming from and what might have motivated him to embark upon such a strange and seemingly self-destructive public stunt.

I felt like I’d been in a similar place when I had the manic episode at the heart of my 2013 book You Don’t Know Me But You Don’t Like Me so I decided to embark upon my very first fiction-writing endeavor and write a novella of speculative fiction that imagines what might have transpired when Donald Trump and Kanye West met behind closed doors for the meeting that shocked and shook pop culture.

The novella is inspired by Elvis & Nixon, Zoolander, and several nervous breakdowns. It’s both a meditation on the strange, celebrity and fame-obsessed-and-warped world we live in and weirdly autobiographical. Best of all, it has a really amazing cover from my absurdly talented sister-in-law Romy Maloon.

The result is about 40 pages, so if you don’t like it, it’s not that long, and if you do like it, it’s not that short. I’d like to think the piece is empathetic and insightful as well as scathing and satirical. It’s free for everyone who pledges to Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place. In fact, I sent out the PDF for this baby to everyone who’d pledged to this site’s Patreon page one month ago and now it is officially available to the general public as an e-book on Amazon.

So please do give it a read, and if you dig it, a review on Amazon. A good review. Where you’re all, “This book was the bomb, ninja! Whoop, whoop!” Those are what are what’s known in the “biz” as “selling reviews” because they consist of nothing but barely comprehensible Juggalo slang.

So cop this hot shit over at Amazon and tell a friend

and support Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place and collect patron-only rewards like one patron-exclusive Control Nathan Rabin and early access to my bigger projects over at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace