Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Naperville White House: How One Man's Fantasy Changed Government s Reality-Jerome Bartels

The Naperville White House: How One Man's Fantasy Changed Government s Reality
Jerome Bartels
Bancroft, Dec 31 2010, $14.95
ISBN: 9781890862916

In 2019 former White House press secretary Jerome Bartels seeks the truth as to what happened last year as too many anomalies have surfaced. The part time Radio Shack employee looks back to what occurred last year to set the record straight though he fears his manuscript will be censored.

In Naperville, Illinois insurance adjustor Jay Weise works during the day for NetHealth. At night and weekends Jay is POTUS. He and people around the world belong to The International Organization of Fantasy Governments with Jay being the President of the United States. Chief of counterintelligence John Sykes informs his boss that someone in his cabinet is a terrorist with plans for abducting other members. Weise worries that Sykes is mixing reality with gaming so he fires him, but everything his counter intelligence chief said turns out to be real as Al Qaeda terrorists hold hostage several Americans. They demand information on an alleged anti-terrorist biological weapon. Weise may have been roll playing but the enemy is not. While the other White House and Congress act impotently, Weise takes charge he and his cabinet try to stop the terrorists.

This whimsical political parody is an engaging thriller that will grip the audience once we readers adjust to the format and the concept. The role playing cast to include Weise and his middle class working cabinet seem like real gamers who adjust their role playing from virtual Nationizing to real recue the hostages. Mr. Bartels’ journalist account is a complicated tale that condemns DC power brokers as the role players pretending or divergent action (think of Contract with American – one passed and that was unconstitutional) rather than real solutions.

Harriet Klausner

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