Bill Clinton

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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Fictional ‘Power Couples’ and a Real Presidential Election

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With America’s presidential election happening in two days, you’re welcome to comment here (before or after November 8) about anything related to that event.

But I also wanted to offer a literature column with some tenuous connection to the election, and came up with the idea of spotlighting fictional “power couples” who are roughly equivalent to Hillary and Bill Clinton — but not necessarily politicians and not necessarily as famous.

The first example I thought of are the two renowned 19th-century poets — Christabel LaMotte and Randolph Henry Ash — who have an affair in A.S. Byatt’s magnificent Possession. That fictional pair is loosely based on actual poets Christina Rossetti and (an amalgam of) Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson.

There’s some sleuthing in Possession, which reminds me that there’s a high-profile couple in various Dorothy L. Sayers novels: wealthy amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey and prominent mystery author Harriet Vane.

Also, we have TV host Doris Dubois and millionaire businessman Barley Salt in Fay Weldon’s The Bulgari Connection — which has a plot driven by Grace McNab Salt, who Barley the jerk divorced to marry the younger, glamorous Doris.

Or how about Mitchell and Abby McDeere in John Grisham’s The Firm? The husband is an attorney in a high-powered (but very suspicious) law firm and the wife a teacher at an elite private school.

Another possible example is Henrietta Stackpole and Mr. Bantling in Henry James’ The Portrait of a Lady. There’s no question that journalist Stackpole is well known but it’s uncertain exactly what Mr. Bantling does except be a member of the upper class, which makes him sort of prominent in 19th-century Europe.

Then there’s investigative journalist Mikail Blomkvist and magazine editor/majority owner Erika Berger, who are occasional lovers in Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and its two sequels.

Plus renowned neurosurgeon Rowan Mayfair and successful home restorer Michael Curry, who fall in love in Anne Rice’s The Witching Hour.

And prominent 1930s stunt pilots/lovers Fritzi Jurdabralinksi and Bill Bevins of Fannie Flagg’s The All-Girl Filling Station’s Last Reunion — in which Fritzi later becomes a Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) during World War II.

In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, among the power pairings are the elite “Auror” Nymphadora Tonks and Professor Remus Lupin.

Another academic, marine biologist Humphrey Clark, was once in a relationship with high-profile feminist Ailsa Kelman in The Sea Lady by Margaret Drabble. (She and the aforementioned A.S. Byatt are sisters, making them a prominent family duo of a different sort.)

Who are your favorite power couples in literature? And, again, election comments are welcome!

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