Among my wide-ranging and disparate groups of friends, I am probably considered the person least likely to, er, blog. (See, I can barely type the word—is it an actual word?—without hesitating.) This morning, in fact, when I said to my husband, “I have to go work on my blog,” he burst into laughter. “What?” I asked. “It’s just so funny to hear you say that,” he explained. None of this has anything to do with Luddite proclivities or an aversion to what used to be known, in more innocent days, as “progress”: I have, and love, an iPhone. I’ve owned a Mac since 1989. I was an early convert to Gmail. And I’ve even, albeit under duress, succumbed to the weird, time-sucking pleasures of Facebook, which those same friends found both shocking and hilarious, until they realized that with rare exceptions I’d treat Facebook much as I treated email, as something to be tended once I’d finished the more pressing tasks necessary to my daily existence (which is to say almost never; there are currently 99 unanswered messages in my inbox). And I suppose therein lies part of the reasons for my blog-avoidance. I am, as my husband and mother like to remind me (sometimes kindly, sometimes not so), one of those people perpetually described as “overcommitted” or “stretched too thin,” and somehow the idea of adding another, meta layer to my days—in which I don’t just do a million things, but write about doing a million things—is somewhat too terrifying to contemplate. And then there’s a question of sensibility. As a reader, I tend to prefer long, highly structured things—Joan Didion’s elegant essays; thick Victorian novels or tart, tightly written comedies of manners—rather than brief ruminations or impressions. But I also have—and in this day and I age I hesitate to admit this, for fear of being stoned—a more philosophical aversion to the form, which is simply that I’ve always preferred to allow my experiences to remain unmediated. When I’m running in East River Park, I want to be thinking about the gray water to my left or the next scene of the story on which I’m working, not how I’m going to describe my run to an audience. I don’t keep a journal—though I’ve tried, under the false impression that all writers must—and I rarely write about personal experiences (unless they seem truly extraordinary, like answering J.D. Salinger’s fan mail or having all my family’s belongings auctioned off), or even in the first person. My novel, A Fortunate Age, is safely composed in the third person, which is ironic, considering that everyone who reads it seems to assume its pure autobiography (more on this to come).

But Jewcy has managed to break down my defenses and for this week I’ll be, yes, blogging (still painful to type the word) on the site, about a subject that I hope won’t strike you as hopelessly played: the strange and anxiety-producing weeks surrounding the publication of said novel, which happens to be my first.

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In 2004, Nicholson Baker, lately celebrated in some quarters for his argument that World War II wasn’t quite worth the trouble, published a rather creepy, inconsequential novel entitled Checkpoint. The entire narrative consists of one character confiding in another his plan to assassinate George W. Bush. Any reader of feverish left-wing blogs – and Baker’s grim hero professed to be one – can’t have been so terribly shocked four years ago by this fictional premise, which also doubled as an electoral gimmick.  Leon Wieseltier, in an otherwise splenetic review in the New York Times, noted that at least Baker was caricaturing his own cohort of rabid Bush haters by making his would-be Oswald look and sound deranged and under-medicated. 

There’s some value in that, you might say. With Captives, however, first-time novelist Todd Hasak-Lowy hasn’t even got the courage of his convictions to articulate a nutty case for why his protagonist envisions a similar revenge fantasy, this one involving a roving sniper who picks off malfeasant CEOs and relatives of high-ranking administration officials. The result is a stillborn amateur effort that isn’t half as sensationalistic as its author thinks it is.

Daniel Bloom is a mediocre Hollywood screenwriter of big-budget action schlock. His greatest success to date is a psychological shoot-‘em-up called Helsinki Honeymoon (which he still prefers to refer to by its original title, Captives), about a reverse case of Stockholm syndrome: the onscreen hostage murders her smitten hostage-taker. This is one way to telegraph the crashing high concept.

Married to a loveless wife, father to a distant 13 year-old awaiting his bar mitzvah, Bloom claims at the outset to be by nature an apolitical everyman, driven to a “certain intractable rage at those responsible for this state of affairs”—the “this” of course referring to what’s gone on in government and the world of high finance for close to a decade. Yes well, haven’t we all?

Though I bet most of us could do better in the way of zeitgeist exposition than our troubled hero, whose rage is not only intractable but also ineffable: “things were really very, very bad and getting much, much worse,” Blooms says, sounding like Police Academy's Commandant Lasard.

To exorcize Bloom’s vague fear and loathing he must unleash his dark progressive id and pen a dirty little fable about killing all the country’s “bad guys” and their presumably innocent but much more accessible kin. Oh, and  – are you sitting down for this? – there is to be no judgment about the amoral deeds perpetrated in Bloom’s bloody pulp fiction. The federal agent assigned to investigate the string of headline-relevant slayings will find himself, for very personal reasons of course, humanizing the avenging killer, then abetting his escape.

Not that Bloom is so sure how his new project will fly with studio heads, much less a national audience. So he relies on the creative encouragement of an insipid Hollywood agent, who keeps changing his name as if to underscore his and everyone else’s lack of memorability, and a smarmy, Weinstein-type producer. Both insist upon Bloom's sapience and artistic prophecy.  Here’s the producer: “I started reading the papers after 9/11. And these guys are a goddamn disaster. Should we shoot their relatives? Probably not. Should we make a movie about someone shooting their relatives? Fucking A-right we should. Fuck them. Let them deal with it getting out in the open.”

Now here’s Bloom explaining to his son why he wouldn’t mind seeing the chief executive cut down in real life: “He’s a very, very bad president. The worst ever, I think. I think he’s a very dangerous person, and I think he’s responsible for a lot of people dying. Americans and people in other places. Plus he’s a liar.”

If it's satire drawn with a crayon you seek, look no further. But even as liberal primal scream therapy, the above must rank a distant second to Philip Roth's exceedingly minor effort, Exit Ghost, in which the token Upper West Side shiksa becomes so livid over Bush's re-election that she demands, eggs unfertilized, to have a protest abortion.

I won’t bore you with the abstruse plot of Bloom's film, but I suppose I’m duty-bound to bore you with that of Hasak-Lowy's book’s. Bloom seeks the wisdom of a strung-out and sociopathic rabbi, he takes a wholly useless trip to Israel – now the destination for all of contemporary fiction’s perplexed Jews in search of “meaning” – and kibitzes with a wannabe sabra Tarentino who talks like a badly messed-with Zohan, and he gobbles a generous helping of psychotropic drugs along the way.

All of which might have been pardoned if the dialogue weren’t so inspid and reminiscent of the big-budget pabulum the characters keep trying to parody. “We should have no illusions about our industry’s ability to speak truth to power,” Bloom’s agent tells him, mistaking ideological pornography for radical candor. “We speak nonsense to indifference.”  

So do some novels.

Dear Jewcy,

Thanks for inviting me to be a guest blogger! I have to admit, at first I wasn't sure what to write about. I mean, I do post every so often on The Huffington Post--but those are usually impassioned tirades about the calamitous political situation. You know: how George Bush and the Republicans have destroyed the country, and the Democrats have let them do it, and how if Obama doesn't get on the stick we're in for four more years of it? But let's face it: that stuff's just no fun! 

Between the occasional HuffPo rant, and co-organizing San Francisco's Progressive Reading Series, and teaching creative writing, and promoting my new novel, Lady Lazarus, I've been pretty busy lately. Which is why I recently decided I needed a vacation. Somewhere beautiful, quiet, maybe a little on the chilly side. Somewhere slightly exotic, but not foreign, somewhere people wouldn't constantly be talking about literature, or yammering on about elections. Somewhere far off the political map.

That's how I wound up in Alaska.

And that's how Sarah Palin and I met, and fell in love - if that's what you call the hot, slippery, sexually supercharged relationship we're carrying on in secret - and how, at last, I found something to blog about.

It all started at the Baranof Hotel, a dignified old establishment on Juneau's North Franklin St., just a few blocks from the capitol. On weekday evenings the Baranof's almost-swanky lounge, the Bubble Room, bustles with legislators and staffers in snow shoes and Armani parkas, hunting rifles slung amiably over their shoulders, talking policy over scotchcicles and bowls of moose stew. Light jazz tinkles from hidden speakers, but can't drown out the baying of the sled dogs tied up outside. Everything about the Baranof says "romance," and when I made the reservation, I'd told them I wanted to splurge - what with the tsunami of royalties from Lady Lazarus, and the exorbitant salary of a creative writing teacher, I figured, sky's the limit. They gave me Suite 604, a nicely appointed suite with plush couches in the sitting area and a beautiful view of the Gastineau Channel and Douglas Island. "Home, sweet home," I thought, flipping through the television menus to see what my late-night porn choices would be. Little did I know, I wouldn't have to choose.

When I walked into the Bubble Room, I was greeted by waves and back-slaps and high fives. It seemed a little odd, but I figured Alaskans must just love left-wing Jewish artists from San Francisco. Everyone wanted to buy me a drink, and to talk about Lady Lazarus - again, I was surprised; I had no idea a book about poetry, punk rock, celebrity, and suicide would be such a hit on the Last Frontier. By midnight, when the sun had started to slant through the windows, I was in my cups, feeling pretty proud of myself for having chosen Juneau for my getaway. All that was missing was female companionship, so I called the bartender over and asked him if he knew where I might find some.

"Funny you should ask," he said, with a strange look of concern. "Someone's been trying to get your attention." I started to turn around, but he lunged across the bar and grabbed me by the shoulders.

"Be careful," he said. He squared his jaw and leaned closer. "Be strong."

At a table near the back sat the brightest bubble in the Bubble Room. She was wearing a red leather jacket, tightly belted, with big black buttons and wide lapels. Her hair was swept up and shimmering under faux-tiki torches. When our eyes met, her smile flashed with the kind of megawattage that can only be generated by fossil fuels. I was paralyzed. I tried desperately to think of how to introduce myself.

Jewcy, it was love at first sight.

Before I could come up with an introduction, hands grabbed my elbows and lifted me off the stool. Two tall, blond men in hunting jackets stood at my sides. Their sunglasses reflected the torches; their earpieces buzzed with secret instructions. They had identical clefts in their strong chins. "Time for your appointment," one said.

"Appointment?" I croaked.

"Her Babeness doesn't like your game. She wants to talk to you," snarled the other.

I looked over to where my beautiful bubble had been. Seeing a flash of red disappearing into an adjoining room, I suddenly understood.

They ushered me through the bar, slowed only by the many people trying to get me to sign their copies of Lady Lazarus. "I'm sorry!" I called back, as they dragged me through a door. The room was cold, windowless, concrete. There was a steel table on an incline, with a complicated network of tubes and pulleys overhead. Somewhere, the sound of water slowly dripping.

"If you wanted to impress me, staying in Suite 604 isn't the way." Behind me, in a high-backed leather chair, sat my lovely bubble. Her smile was the only source of heat in that chamber. She wrinkled her nose - so adorable! - as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves.

"W-why?" I said. "What's wrongwith Suite 604?"

The two Aryan goons started to snicker. "Like you don't know," one said. "Why else would you be here?" said the other. "All you New York journalists come here because of 604." In the chair, Her Babeness tilted her head and blinked a lot. I said I wasn't from New York, and I wasn't a journalist - which seemed to confuse the goons. "But... you look like a New Yorker."

"I'm a novelist," I said, somewhat indignantly. "From San Francisco. I'm on vacation."

"Boys," said the bubble. "Maybe you should take a lunch break."

When they had left, she motioned for me to have a seat on the steel table. I said I preferred to stand and she giggled, then stood and shoved me backward. I sat.

"See, not many people request Suite 604. It's got what we Alaskans call ‘a history.'" That's when she explained about VECO, the oil pipeline company that bribed basically the whole state legislature, not to mention Alaska's only U.S. congressman, Don Young, the ornery senator, Ted Stevens, and for good measure, Stevens's son Ben. The Feds had caught them by bugging Suite 604 and capturing some pretty incriminating discussions on tape. Suddenly I understood the warm welcome I'd gotten from all the government staffers: they thought the gravy train was back!

It turned out that my bubble of charm and sex appeal was none other than the governor of Alaska, who'd made much of her reputation by denouncing Alaska's good ol' boy system of corruption, even while she worked hard to help Stevens continue to extract pipelines full of pork spending from the federal government.

"Not a bad trick," I said. I pressed my palms against cold steel. It may have been the chilliness of the room, but I was shaking like a kid at the eighth grade dance.

"I know!" she said, biting herlower lip. "I like to play both sides."

I was sure now that Her Babeness was flirting with me. How I longed to pull her close! But I didn't dare.

"Governor of Alaska," I said. "And so smart, and so, um, physically, you know, attractive. You're doing pretty well for yourself."

That's when Sarah Palin put her hand on my chest, leaned close, and said, "It gets better than that, even..."

Jewcy, I'm sure you're reading this with your mouth wide open. I'm sure it's as hard for you to believe as it was for me - but I swear every word of it is true! As she led me out through a back door, and up a hidden staircase to the sixth floor of the Baranof, she told me something that blew my mind: She'd been chosen to run for Vice President. Of the United States!

Needless to say, by the time we arrived at Suite 604 the governor and I were weak-kneed and frothing with desire. She shoved me into the room and dimmed the lights and we fell onto the couch in a sweat. I fumbled with the belt of her jacket, but she pinned my arms under her knees and whispered in my ear, "Is it true about Jewish men? Are you really the Chosen Ones?" How to describe the look on her face? She was still smiling broadly, but her eyes pierced me with intensity, drilling into my skull as though I were a coastal plain in the ANWR, and she'd just caught a whiff of light, sweet crude.

Sarah unbelted her jacket, undoing each button with an unblinking wrinkle of the nose. What do you think she was wearing underneath?

"I like novelists," she said. "I like them a lot. In my administration, we're going to outsource the fiction to professionals. That way, we can privatize, and keep our hands clean, at the same time." Stark naked except for her mukluks and the latex gloves, dazzlingly beautiful, Her Babeness glanced around Suite 604 with a proprietary, satisfied look. "You know," she said in a husky voice, "a lot of people have gotten royally fucked in this room..."

Somehow, though my throat was parched, I managed to whisper, "Why do you think I requested it?" Sarah threw back her head and laughed. Then she picked up the remote control and tossed it in my lap.

"Stop talking, novelist," she said. "Save your words for the next war. They comped us the all-night porn package. You'd better conserve your strength."

Tomorrow: Sarah takes me on a moose hunt; the Secret Service roughs me up while Sarah watches; First Dude Todd Palin suspects something...

Andrew Foster Altschul, author of Lady Lazarus, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.