George S. Kaufman, a titan of American theater in the early 20th century, famously stated “satire is what closes on Saturday night”; in other words, the subversive, comical puncturing of sacred cows, political posturing, and social mores has always been a dicey commercial proposition. Satire makes audiences uncomfortable—people can never be sure the barbs aren’t aimed at them, and no one wants to be on the outside of an inside joke. But in our current cultural moment, the lines between reality and savage takedowns of same have seemingly irrevocably blurred. As Art Buchwald, another great American humorist, observed, “You can’t make up anything anymore. The world itself is a satire. All you’re doing is recording it.”
A recent selection of titles from intrepid Indieland authors suggests the form is alive and well—the following recommendations take big narrative swings, risk censure for demonstrating “bad taste,” and bravely lay bare the hypocrisies and absurdities of the way (shudder) we live now.
In The Bulgarian Training Manual (2024), novelist Ruth Bonapace mercilessly lampoons physical- and mental-wellness culture. Tina Bontempi (there’s a good time right in her name!), a hapless pothead realtor barely scraping by, finds her life transformed by the titular guide, which outlines, among other self-improvement protocols, various body-building meal plans, including a feeding-tube diet, a baby-food diet, and a virtual diet (which involves imaginary food). As Tina works her way through the manual, Bonapace deftly limns the narcissistic vapidity that characterizes the dark side of self-serious “self-care”—Goop subscribers will squirm. Our reviewer writes, “it’s a wild ride that’s most fun when readers put their assumptions aside” and praises its “disarmingly appealing protagonist.”
Douglas Robinson’s Insecticide (2024) takes aim at American politics—this is a bit akin to shooting fish in a barrel, but when it’s done this entertainingly only churls will complain. In the novel, Texas has formed an independent right-wing racist police state under the control of the Bush family—yes, those Bushes; George W. is considered a disappointing clone. (So where does the satire come in? We kid, we kid.) The premise only gets weirder: The Bushes (and all of the Earth’s elite ruling families) are under the thrall of extraterrestrial insects (which would explain a lot). Our reviewer highlights the novel’s depiction of the government as “encompassing amoral power blocs and game players, treating the common folk as so many insects as they scheme outrageously for control and privilege.” Certainly, normal, decent human beings would never stoop so low.
It’s only fair that corporations come in for a similar drubbing; that job is handily accomplished by So You Want To Be An Oligarch (2023), C.T. Jackson’s faux guidebook for the aspiring capitalist monster. The spoof functions as a history of institutional greed as Jackson outlines such vile power moves as Henry J. Heinz influencing food regulations that eliminated his competition and Sanford Dole’s lobbying of Grover Cleveland to annex Hawaii using military force. The book is also formally playful, with pop-up ads interrupting the text and an appendix saluting “The Great Exploiters of Earth.” Our reviewer calls the work “a nihilistically hilarious commentary on the corporate world”; we laugh that we may not cry.
Arthur Smith is an Indie editor.
