While Donald Trump is not a character in Thinks Out Loud, some of the bloggers in the book do make references to him circa 2011, when the story takes place. An aside: The predecessor to the novel was an actual blog called Thinking Out Loud, postings of what I hoped at the time were of a humorous nature. The novel grew out of those postings, some of which were recycled in varying degrees with modifications of form and content. I worked on the book in earnest, as opposed to unearnest, in 2013 to 2014. Then the book went into an advanced editing/publication stage, finally appearing in July 2017 (after Trump took office). Since the book was essentially written before the 2016 election, those references to Trump were all created when he was starting to make his presidential aspirations known but while no one was taking him seriously.
On page 18, for example, the blogger tallboy actually does a short satirical posting featuring an abrasive Trump demanding to see Obama’s third-grade transcript, his dental records, and a list of his iTunes downloads.
On page 78, tallboy conjectures that Trump could accidentally fire himself from The Apprentice.
As I said, back in 2011, Trump wasn’t being taken seriously by the press, Democrats, and Republicans with presidential dreams. I can’t even say these short references to him in the early parts of the book serve as foreshadowing because he’s not mentioned later on. The only loose connection I can come up with is that one of the book’s themes is about control: the desire for control and what that desire can cause a person to do. Given that perspective, then Trump’s appearance in the book can be considered inadvertently prophetic.
SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT THE BOOK AND AMAZON: If you order Thinks Out Loud from Amazon Prime, you will be receiving an older version that is out of date and whose printing is lighter than the current edition. If on Amazon, order from the Thinks Out Loud option which will be the newer better print version. You can also order the newer version directly from the publisher via this website, thinksoutloud.com, or from your local bookstore, which will either have the book in stock or available via a quick special order from Ingram, the wholesaler.
Thinks Out Loud, a Blog at First
by Martin Perlman
https://www.thinksoutloud.com/