Short storiesReviewThe novelist and former journalist skewers both left and right in a highly topical collection of talesBilled as “almost true stories for a post-truth world”, Tom Rachman’s masterful collection provides an early literary look at Trump-era America. From a Manhattan clique whose smug election party heads rapidly south, to the tale of an arms-trading sociopath with some familiar linguistic quirks (“So I contact my old friend Baz Grimaldi; great guy”), these slick, entertaining hot takes from a former journalist sacrifice nothing in sophistication despite their speedy turnaround. Rachman draws on George Saunders with “Leakzilla”, the (highly plausible) tale of a hack that dumps everyone’s email history online, while creepy tech parable “How the End Begins” imagines a website that reveals how users will die – yielding the ominous “asphyxiation” for every child. Throw in a superbly choreographed farce about fake mourners out-hamming each other at a memorial and you have a collection that runs cheerfully amok with the sense that, as one character puts it, “stuff just feels like it’s going berserk”. These bang-up-to-the-minute stories feel like essential reading as we get to grips with a bizarre new era.
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