'They said what they would do, and we did not listen. Then they did what they said they would do.'
So ends the first chapter of this brilliantly readable counterfactual novel, reminding us that America's Christian fundamentalists have been consistently clear about their vision for a 'Christian Nation' and dead serious about acquiring the political power to achieve it. When President McCain dies and Sarah Palin becomes president, the reader, along with the nation, stumbles down a terrifyingly credible path toward theocracy, realizing too late that the Christian right meant precisely what it said.
In the spirit of Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, one of America's foremost lawyers lays out in chilling detail what such a future might look like: constitutional protections dismantled; all aspects of life dominated by an authoritarian law called 'The Blessing,' enforced by a totally integrated digital world known as the 'Purity Web.' Readers will find themselves haunted by the questions the narrator struggles to answer in this fictional memoir: 'What happened, why did it happen, how could it have happened?'
Industry Reviews
"Brilliant 1984-style dystopian novel of a Christian theocracy under President Palin and her successor...read Fred Rich's Christian Nation and learn fear." -- Richard Dawkins
"Christian Nation is a new novel from lawyer Fred Rich that wonders what would happen if the Republican ticket won in 2008. But Rich goes even further than that, plotting a would-be Palin presidency after McCain passes away in the novel. And although it's fiction, Rich is dead serious about what a Palin presidency would mean for the country. As the title suggest, Rich is concerned about how religious extremists on the right could upend society." -- Patrick Gavin - Politico
"Well written and persuasive...For those who might enjoy a work that entwines political, legal and religious themes, Christian Nation is a worthwhile read." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"The scariest thing about Christian Nation is that it's so plausible. No violent revolution, no blood in the streets, is necessary for Americans to lose their freedoms-just a failure to defend the liberties that we often take for granted." -- Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State
"This riveting novel should join Sinclair Lewis's It Can Happen Here as an American classic...Please, read this book and then pass it on to six other people, making it into a chain letter for liberty." -- Nadine Strossen, former president, American Civil Liberties Union
"Frederic C. Rich's gripping novel Christian Nation straddles the line between speculative fiction and passionate indictment of today's Christian Right." -- Robert Burke Warren - Hudson Valley Chronogram
"[Rich] shrewdly shows how a few legal measures, a bad recession and a terrorist attack can unravel the liberties many take for granted. In that regard, it's an inheritor to Sinclair Lewis' 1935 novel, It Can't Happen Here...Dystopian, wonkish fun for the Maddow set." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Read as a cautionary tale or a terrifying what-if, this dystopian alternate reality makes riveting, provocative reading." -- Booklist
