HEY, THAT'S OUR LIST!:

His Conservative Connections Help to Put Novelist on Best-Seller List (DAVID E. ROSENBAUM, 11/15/03, NY Times)

A year ago at this time, Joel C. Rosenberg was a conservative Republican political operative with a deep evangelical faith, three small children, no connections in the Bush White House or the Congressional leadership and no particular prospects for a steady job.

Just before Thanksgiving last year, his first novel, "The Last Jihad," was published. It begins with a suicide pilot crashing his private plane into the president's motorcade and ends with the president saying a silent prayer as the nuclear bombs he ordered are dropped on Iraq. By December, it was on The New York Times best-seller list, where it stayed for 11 weeks.

Based on those sales, Mr. Rosenberg, 36, received an advance of more than $1 million for a sequel, "The Last Days," which also involves terrorism in the United States and mayhem in the Middle East. It went on sale three weeks ago and is already No. 24 on The Times's expanded best-seller list.

"No one had ever heard of me," Mr. Rosenberg said over lunch the other day. "Now I feel like I'm playing in the major league with the Yankees."

By conventional standards, these are not very good novels. The plots streak along at breakneck speed. But there is no subtlety and no attempt at character development.

The Washington Post review of "The Last Jihad" called the writing "an act of terrorism on the reader's brain."

Publishers Weekly said of "The Last Days," "The author singularly fails to suspend readers' disbelief."

But Mr. Rosenthal has an advantage few writers of fiction enjoy — his friendships in the conservative political network.

Is it just us, or does the Left seem particularly upset that conservative books, particularly novels, end up on the bestseller lists these days?

Meanwhile, there's Joshua Gilder: New Novelist Makes Waves (NewsMax, 12/02/02)

Until now, Joshua Gilder, author of the critically acclaimed new novel "Ghost Image," was best known as "ghost writer" of some of Ronald Reagan's most memorable speeches.

"A lot of unmemorable ones, too," says Gilder. "I must have written over 50 speeches on tax reform. I don't know how many on the budget."

He also penned the famous "Go ahead, make my day!" line, which stopped a giant tax hike dead in its tracks, and the speech at Moscow State University during the 1988 summit that helped bring down the evil empire.

So, what's different now? Gilder is still writing about the conflict between good and evil, but now it's interpersonal rather than international, a not-so-cold war taking place inside the human heart.

Says Gilder: "'Ghost Image' is ultimately about redemption. It's a murder mystery, so by definition bad things happen. There are dark passages. But in the end, there's light."

MORE:
-REVIEW: of Surprised by Beauty: A Listener's Guide to the Recovery of Modern Music By Robert R. Reilly (Joshua Gilder, National Review)
-INTERVIEW: with Joshua Gilder (Kate Shulman, Politics and Prose)
-INTERVIEW: Introducing our new featured author, Joshua Gilder.  Author of Ghost Image, an exciting and breath-taking new thriller! (New Mystery Reader)
-REVIEW: of Ghost Image (Patrick Anderson, Washington Post)
-REVIEW: of Ghost Image (NANDITA KHANNA, Washingtonian)

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 15, 2003 8:52 AM