Were Fictional Characters in Epstein’s Orbit, Too?

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Jeffrey Epstein with Donald Trump. (Davidoff Studios Photography/Getty Images.)

After the welcome February 19 arrest of the former Prince Andrew over his tawdry and traitorous ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein, much can be said before I somehow turn this into a literature post:

— The monstrous Epstein was an abusive pedophile, sex trafficker of girls and young women, blackmailer, possible Russian and/or Israeli intelligence agent, etc.

— Major consequences for the elite (mainly rich white men) who were in Epstein’s orbit have mostly been meted out to those outside the United States.

— Nearly all the prominent Americans who were in that orbit have faced little more than some public scorn. A small number lost jobs or other positions, but none have faced Epstein-related criminal charges.

— Americans who were in Epstein’s orbit include President Trump (who has VERY suspiciously fought like hell to keep The Epstein Files secret); Trump cabinet members Howard Lutnick and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.; Trump strategist Steve Bannon; former President Bill Clinton; former Clinton cabinet member Lawrence Summers; tech billionaires Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Bill Gates; former Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner; attorney Alan Dershowitz; filmmaker Woody Allen; intellectual Noam Chomsky; Giants football team co-owner Steve Tisch; and others.

All the debauchery and lack of accountability have not gone unnoticed by famous characters in literature, even if their thoughts on Epstein never quite made it into the novels they inhabit. For instance, fictional pedophile Humbert Humbert is perverted enough to hypothetically admire Epstein, even if Epstein was only two years old when Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita got published in 1955. Perhaps HH was prescient in addition to deviant.

A Game of Thrones, the first novel in George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, includes 13-year-old Daenerys being forced to marry the adult warlord Drogo. Maybe she found some of her courage by anticipating the perseverance of Epstein survivors who continue to seek justice despite their attempts at that being blocked or ignored for decades — most recently by the Trump regime’s ghoulishly sycophantic attorney general Pam Bondi.

While thirsting for revenge against her sexual abuser, the resourceful Lisbeth Salander of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels might have theoretically considered also unleashing retribution on the depraved Epstein. At minimum, the computer-savvy Salander was capable of hacking into Epstein’s grotesque email conversations with various wealthy sickos.

While looking down from heaven in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, raped-then-murdered teen Susie Salmon could have also kept a disgusted eye on Epstein before he started looking up from hell after his 2019 death. (It has been said that Epstein committed suicide in prison, but many feel he was killed to prevent him from possibly spilling the beans on his fellow guilty elites.)

The female collaborators to the grossly misogynist men in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale might wish they could contact Epstein collaborator Ghislaine Maxwell for extra collaboration advice, or even ask to join Maxwell in the cushy Texas jail the Trump regime transferred her to as a way to increase the chances of her not implicating former close Epstein pal Trump.

Finally, a reader could wonder if Jane Eyre, after becoming aware of Edward Rochester’s marital history, suspected Rochester of having Epstein ties despite the two men existing two centuries apart and one of them being fictional. Thankfully, British author Charlotte Bronte lived during Queen Victoria’s time rather than the former Prince Andrew’s time.

Comments on, or additions to, this rather fraught topic?

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22 thoughts on “Were Fictional Characters in Epstein’s Orbit, Too?”

  1. How about Hannibal Lecter, created by Thomas Harris? I imagine that he would delight in savoring Epstein’s brain for dinner. As for the Dementors in the Harry Potter series, they are sucking up all the happiness from the souls of Epstein’s co-conspirators and stuffing their dreams with the trauma of their victims.

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    • Thank you, Rosaliene! Great comment! Somehow I’ve never read or watched Hannibal Lecter in book or movie form, but I’ve of course heard about him; Epstein would’ve deserved whatever fate he got from Lecter. And if the Dementors went after Epstein and his co-conspirators? Have at ’em! But sadly the ultra-rich American elites rarely get their comeuppance. 😦

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  3. A difficult topic, Dave, and the comments below along with your own notes name many of the prime contenders. I had the inkling of an idea, and couldn’t quite come up with the exact text, so googled it and got the following:. Fanny Burney’s ‘Evelina, or the History of a Young Woman’s Entrance into the World,’ in which wealthy men use women like horses to race against each other. The degraded Captain Mirvan and his circle arrange a race between two elderly women and bet on them as if they were racehorses. It’s been called ‘a depiction of the cruel and degrading nature of gentlemanly “sport” and the dehumanizing treatment of individuals by the upper classes. Evelina is Burney’s first novel, known for its satire of social behaviors and its portrayal of the vulnerability of women in a male-dominated society.’ Written, I might note, by a female author who doesn’t often get her due. And then there’s John Cleland’s ‘Fanny Hill’, where the eponymous protagonist is required to both perform and watch voyeuristic sex. And let’s not forget the Marquis de Sade and ‘Justine’, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s ‘Venus in Furs’ and ‘The Story of O’ by Pauline Reage. Sorry. Getting carried away. Unfortunately there are far too many contenders – authors or characters – who’d fit right into the Epstein circle.

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    • Thank you, Laura! I read “Evelina” — a terrific 18th-century novel — a number of years ago and had forgotten that aspect of it. Some wealthy men were just as disgusting and misogynist then as they are now. Frances Burney was an astute observer of society and a great novelist, diarist, etc. And I appreciate those other examples. If Epstein-like figures from throughout history all gathered together, it would be an enormous/sordid crowd. 😦

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  4. I hesitate to mention (but I will) Richard Adams’s Maia, which has a lot of sexual abuse of girls as part of the plot. Although he presents it as evil, he certainly wallows in it. I admit I found the book compelling years ago, but am of mixed minds about it now.

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    • Thank you, Audrey! “Maia” sounds a lot different than “Watership Down” — the only Richard Adams book I’ve read. One can usually tell if an author is wallowing in something they purport to be criticizing, and that seems to be the case in “Maia.” Disturbing. 😦

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    • Thank you, Dingenom! I remember reading about that Alice Munro situation, and understand your feelings about that awful behavior being associated with a writer you had been a fan of. I had previously read only one of Munro’s story collections, and loved it, but she certainly went down in my estimation after her behavior was revealed. It does raise the age-old question of how much we should separate an author from her or his work (something I’ve blogged about in the past). I guess I do that on a case-by-case basis. For instance, I hate J.K. Rowling’s bigoted views of trans people, but still read her novels, while I can’t bring myself to read books by the far-right Ayn Rand.

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      • Well, Makkai’s piece for the LA Times (vide the link) is exactly about that. It doesn’t solve the dilemma for me altogether. Can you simply excise major literary composition (Munro was a Nobel Prize for literature laureate) from the body of literature that every next generation if writers builds on? It is almost indecent. To me, a key consideration in Makkai’s article is this: “In the case of Munro, the revelations don’t just defile the artist, but the art itself. I need to face the fact that Alice Munro was never looking down with grace and irony on her saddest characters.” This is what may convince me to accept radical “Munroectomy”.

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        • Whether an author’s awful behavior (or going along with awful behavior) seeps into their work is key. And it colors how a reader would interpret an author’s work (as you noted, “I need to face the fact that Alice Munro was never looking down with grace and irony on her saddest characters”). In Rowling’s case, I’ve read all her novels (the “Harry Potter” ones, “The Casual Vacancy,” and her more recent crime fiction) and never noticed an anti-trans element; she certainly compartmentalizes!

          “Munroectomy” — a great word!

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  7. Interesting topic. Epstein and his companions (men and women) reveal both the entitlement of the wealthy and powerful and also their depravity. Justice for the victims? Not likely in our country.

    Sally Hepworth, in Darling Girls, explores abuse and trauma of girls in the foster care system. Miss Fairchild, the foster mother, has her own history of childhood abuse and trauma, which she visits on the girls in her charge.

    Lisa Gardner’s Alone is a story of the long-term damage of a pedophile.

    Night Came with Many Stars by Simon Van Booy–well, it makes me shake my head at how devalued girls are (a father loses his 13-year old daughter in a poker game).

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