|
|
Fictional Presidents
Return to Fiction_L Booklists Menu
July 2001
Compiled by Jeff Smith
, from contributions by the members of Fiction_L.
(To use this list in your library, book club, etc., please include the following credit line: "Compiled by the subscribers of the Fiction_L mailing list." This list may not be used for commercial purposes.)
Selected works of noteworthy or memorable fiction featuring US presidents and the presidency.
See also Political Fiction1 and Political Fiction 2 lists.
ENTIRELY FICTIONAL PRESIDENTS (OR CANDIDATES)
- Henry Adams
- Democracy
- (late-19th-century novel of life among the Washington elite)
- Nathaniel West
- A Cool Million
- (fictional ex-president in anti-Horatio Alger story)
- Allen Drury
- Advise and Consent, and other novels
- (classic political novels "from the man who practically invented the genre")
- Fletcher Knebel
- Vanished
- (mystery surrounds disappearance of prominent DC attorney at the height of the Cold War)
- Eugene Burdick & Harvey Wheeler
- FailSafe
- (president races to stop accidental US nuclear attack on Russia)
- Robert J. Serling
- The President's Plane Is Missing
- (vice-president faces international crisis after Air Force One mysteriously disappears)
- Arthur Hailey
- In High Places
- (story of secret, high-level Cold War summitry)
- Walter Stovall
- Presidential Emergency
- (intrigue and conniving at high government levels)
- Irving Wallace
- The R Document
- ("about the ultimate plot against the people of the United States")
- The Man
- (African-American senator succeeds to the presidency)
- Drew Pearson
- The President
- (new president struggles against raging civil unrest as political foes seek his impeachment)
- Charles Templeton
- The Kidnapping of the President
- (race against time to rescue a president held hostage)
- John Calvin Batchelor
- Father's Day
- (vice-president, temporarily appointed acting president, refuses to relinquish power)
- Vince Flynn
- Transfer of Power
- (CIA operative "Iron Man" comes to aid of White House attacked by Arab terrorists)
- The Third Option
- (more adventures of "Iron Man")
- Term Limits
- (military commandos threaten to assassinate corrupt politicians)
- Jack Higgins
- The President's Daughter
- (title character kidnapped by Israeli extremists)
- Edward Stewart
- They've Shot the President's Daughter!
- (mystery surrounds reasons for title event)
- Tom Clancy
- Executive Orders, and other novels
- (recurring character Jack Ryan ascends through various offices to the presidency)
- William Borden
- Superstoe
- (a group of academics sets out to manipulate the political process to place themselves in power)
- Richard North Patterson
- Protect and Defend
- (president nominates the judge in a controversial abortion case for Chief Justice)
- Franklin Allen Leib
- Behold a Pale Horse
- (apocalyptic story in which a televangelist turned president unleashes a "holy war" against US foes)
- Christopher Hyde
- Hard Target
- ("What would happen if the president became mentally ill and no one knew about it?")
- Steve Pieczenik
- Maximum Vigilance
- (president's psychiatrist must decide whether commander-in-chief is mentally fit amid crisis that could lead to World War III)
- Brad Meltzer
- The First Counsel
- (a young White House lawyer who is dating the President's daughter winds up running for his life)
- Patrick Robinson
- U.S.S. Seawolf
- (president responds to Chinese hijacking of a US sub on which his son is a crew member)
- John J. Nance
- Headwind
- (president and his plane crew attempt to escape arrest by foreign officials)
- James W. Huston
- Balance of Power
- (constitutional crisis as president and House speaker battle for control of a US Navy Task Force)
- Michael Kilian
- By Order of the President
- (thriller involving cover-ups after the president is shot)
- Brian McGrory
- The Incumbent
- (novel by former White House correspondent follows a reporter investigating an assassination attempt)
- Erik Tarloff
- Face-Time
- (a young presidential aide's girlfriend is having an affair with the president)
- Nancy Freedman
- Joshua, Son of None
- (president as clone)
- Patricia Anthony
- Brother Termite
- (president as alien)
- David Baldacci
- Absolute Power
- (president as murder suspect)
- Sandra Brown
- Exclusive
- (president suspected in death of a reporter's infant son)
- E.J. Gorman
- First Lady
- (title character faces allegations that she murdered to cover up an affair)
- Irving Wallace
- The Second Lady
- (female Russian spy secretly replaces president's wife)
- Margaret Truman
- Murder in the White House
- (one of several "Murder in...." novels set in Washington locales)
- Sinclair Lewis
- It Can't Happen Here
- (about a fascist attempt to take over the US)
- Fletcher Knebel & Charles W. Bailey II
- Seven Days in May
- (Cold War thriller about a threatened military takeover of the US government)
- Convention
- (double-dealing in the backrooms, bars, and bedrooms at a Republican Convention)
- Richard Condon
- The Emperor of America
- (satire in which army colonel assumes title office after nuclear destruction of Washington)
- Stephen King
- The Dead Zone (horror/supernatural)
- (auto-accident survivor has visions of a future Hitleresque president)
- Fred Eckert
- Hank Harrison for President
- (satire in which a "Jeopardy!" winner winds up assuming the presidency)
- Kaiji Kawaguchi
- Eagle: The Making of an Asian?American President
- (Japanese manga in multiple volumes)
FEMALE PRESIDENTS
- Jeffrey Archer
- The Prodigal Daughter Shall We Tell the President?
- ("Florentyna Kane," first woman president)
- Susan Elizabeth Phillips
- First Lady [romance] ("Cornelia Case," wife of an assassinated president, who eventually becomes the first woman president)
- Ellen Emerson White , President's Daughter series [Young Adult]
- The President's Daughter
- White House Autumn
- The Road Home
- (teenage girl's mom is elected president)
CANDIDATES AND PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS
- Richard Condon
- The Manchurian Candidate
- (classic paranoid thriller about brainwashed GI sent to assassinate a presidential nominee)
- Final Addiction
- (black comedy in which a hot-dog salesman marries a cocaine smuggler who engineers his bid for the presidency)
- Fletcher Knebel
- Dark Horse
- (thriller centered on an unknown's populist presidential campaign)
- Arthur D. Robbins
- Greenfield for President
- (satire of politics and the media centering on a third-party candidacy)
- Reed Karaim
- If Men Were Angels
- (a dark-horse candidate who may be too good to be true)
- Stewart Woods
- Run
- (intrigue surrounding White House bid by senator married to high-ranking CIA official)
- Richard North Patterson
- No Safe Place
- (senator running in California presidential primary is stalked by assassin)
- Jeff Greenfield
- The People's Choice
- (electoral college goes haywire when president?elect dies before taking office)
- Leon Uris
- A God in Ruins
- (Irish Catholic running for president learns he was born Jewish)
- Charles McCarry
- Lucky Bastard
- (illegitimate son of JFK runs for president)
- James [Jim] Lehrer
- The Last Debate
- (candidate's secret evil puts journalists in an ethical bind)
- Joe Klein
- Primary Colors
- (fictionalized Bill Clinton runs for nomination)
- Running Mate
- (sequel to "Primary Colors" focusing on Vietnam War hero struggling to revive his political career)
CHILDREN'S / YOUNG ADULT
- Marc Brown
- Arthur Meets the President
- (Arthur's essay wins a contest and he has to read it to the president in a special ceremony at the White House)
- Jane Langton
- The Fragile Flag
- (nine-year-old girl launches a protest against the president's missile program)
- Dan Gutman
- The Kid Who Ran For President
- The Kid Who Became President
- (adventures of a 12-year-old whose children's movement sweeps him to office)
- Ellen Emerson White, President's Daughter series [see above]
NON-PRESIDENTS IMAGINED AS PRESIDENTS
- Michael Kurland
- The Whenabouts of Burr
- (Aaron Burr)
- Robert Skimin
- Custer's Luck
- (George Armstrong Custer)
- Kurt A.R. Giambastiani
- The Year the Cloud Fell
- (George Armstrong Custer)
- Robert Harris
- Fatherland
- (Berlin detective investigates a murder as a Hitler who won World War II prepares for summit meeting with President Joseph P. Kennedy)
- Russell Baker
- Our Next President
- (Bobby Kennedy)
- Mike Resnick, ed.
- Alternate Presidents (anthology)
- Alternate Kennedys (anthology)
- Also see: http://www.uchronia.net/
- (standard Web site for alternate-history stories)
REAL PRESIDENTS FICTIONALIZED
- William Wells Brown
- Clotel; or The President's Daughter
- (antebellum tale of a slave fathered by Thomas Jefferson)
- William Safire
- Scandalmonger
- (fact-based story of scandal among the Founders)
- David Nevin
- Eagle's Cry
- (about the Lousiana Purchase and the major political players of the time)
- David Poyer
- The Only Thing to Fear
- (a young JFK is assigned to protect FDR from assassination)
- George Bernau
- Promises to Keep
- (what might have happened if "John T. Cassidy" = JFK had survived the assassination)
- Peter Delacorte
- Time on My Hands
- (a man travels back in time to keep young movie actor Ronald Reagan from becoming president)
- Lauren Belfer
- City of Light
- (Grover Cleveland's handlers deliver a naive young Louisa Barrett to his hotel room; her subsequent pregnancy shapes the course of her life)
- Irving Stone
- Those Who Love (John & Abigail Adams)
- Love Is Eternal (Abraham & Mary Lincoln)
- The President's Lady (Andrew & Rachel Jackson)
- Oscar Lewis
- The Lost Years
- (Lincoln survives assassination and struggles through an unpopular second term)
- Mark Schorr
- Bully!
- (Teddy Roosevelt on the track of a murder-conspiracy)
- Caleb Carr
- The Alienist
- (Teddy appears as New York City Police Commissioner)
- Harry Turtledove
- Alternate-history novels:
- How Few Remain
- (Teddy Roosevelt as young rancher/soldier; Abe Lincoln as aging socialist)
- The Two Georges
- (George Washington in an America that never declares independence)
- Great War series
- (Theodore Roosevelt; Woodrow Wilson as Confederate States president)
- World War series
- (FDR and other leaders respond to World War II-era alien invasion of earth)
- Elliott Roosevelt
- Murder in the Executive Mansion, and other novels
- (mysteries featuring Eleanor Roosevelt solving crimes in the White House)
- "Lee W. Mason" [= Barry Malzberg]
- Lady of a Thousand Sorrows
- (literary soft porn about a thinly disguised Jackie Kennedy, with thinly disguised JFK, RFK, LBJ, etc.)
- Philip Roth
- Our Gang
- (pre-Watergate satire of the Nixon Administration)
- Jonathan Lowy
- Elvis and Nixon
- (fictional meeting between the title characters in 1970)
- Howard Waldrop
- "Ike at the Mike" [short story]
- (Eisenhower and Elvis trade career paths in an alternate 1950s)
- James Silver
- Naked Presidents: An Alternate History
- (book that asks, "What if the political destinies of Kennedy and Clinton were reversed?")
- Joe Klein
- Primary Colors; Running Mate [see above]
- Also see: http://www.uchronia.net/
VARIOUS
- Greenberg & Nevins, ed.
- Mr. President, Private Eye
- [science-fiction anthology]
- The President's Mystery Plot
- (multi-authored, "high camp" mystery reportedly inspired by an idea of FDR's)
- Ed McBain
- Hail to the Chief [87th Precinct detective series]
- (retells the story of Nixon and Watergate in small-scale terms of a paranoid, self-justifying juvenile delinquent gang leader)
- Larry Kahn
- The Jinx
- (presidential assassination conspiracy going back 150 years)
From listings in "R. Reginald" (= Michael Burgess), Science Fiction and
Fantasy Literature:
- PRESIDENT FU MANCHU by Sax Rohmer
- (Fu is evil genius behind presidential candidate)
- PRESIDENT JOHN SMITH by Frederick Upton Adams
- PRESIDENT KISSINGER by Donald Munson and Monroe Rosenthal
- PRESIDENT McGOVERN'S FIRST TERM by Nicholas Max
- PRESIDENT RANDOLPH AS I KNEW HIM by John Francis Goldsmith
- THE PRESIDENT VANISHES by Rex Stout
- THE PRESIDENTAL PLOT by Stanley Judson
- THE PRESIDENT'S DOCTOR by William Woolfolk
|
|
