Over at Jacket Copy, the book blog of the Los Angeles Times, Carolyn Kellogg is just as stymied as we are by the overwhelmingly disproportionate displays of support for Barack Obama in the world of American literature—so she went looking for authors who support John McCain, and she found six. But half of them (Bill Bennett and two Ivy League economists) were nonfiction writers, which whittled the list down to just three fiction writers: Brenda Joyce, Linda Bruckheimer, and Nelson DeMille (clockwise from top left). And Kellogg only determined that they had made individual contributions to McCain; as yet, we’ve still seen no evidence of authors banding together to encourage others to donate to his campaign as well.
Meanwhile, reports of literary support for the Democratic nominee are now coming in from New England: Steve Almond is hosting an “Obama-thon” in Boston on October 14 featuring, among others, Anita Diamant, Claire Messud, and Robert Pinsky; four days later, Almond joins Michael Lowenthal and William Giraldi for a New Hampshire fundraising rally. “New Hampshire was the only state that swung from red in 2000 to blue in 2004,” Lowenthal emails, “and we’re trying to keep it from swinging back.”
(photos: Bruckheimer: Getty Images; DeMille: author’s website; Joyce: Shannon Emmel)