“The hyperreal is the real. The surreal is the real in The United States. We’ve reached that point. The absurd is the real. And so that’s what I was trying to capture in the book.” — Ben Fountain

Our absurdist-in-chief wants a $250 banknote with his face on it. But the satirist Ben Fountain gives the President something even more valuable. In his new novel Rasputin Swims the Potomac, Fountain delivers something quite priceless: a book that Trump deserves.

In Fountain’s novel, a sitting president, running for a third term, enlists a world champion professional wrestler, Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin, to help secure his re-election. Born Patrick Walsh Strickland in Buffalo, New York, Rasputin served in special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, spent six years in a monastery, became fluent in Russian, and claims to be a real Russian monk. Evangelicals start defecting to Rasputin. A pandemic of “weeping sickness” sweeps the nation. It’s almost as unbelievable as a sitting President wanting a $250 banknote glowing with his orange face.

Fountain’s parallels with late Tsarist Russia are hard to miss — the chasmic wealth inequality, the impossible get-rich schemes, the quack religions, the gilded decadence, the dying social classes, the mad politicians. It’s scary stuff. Fountain says that we should even be careful taking his summer novel to the beach. Rather than Jaws-dropping, Rasputin Swims the Potomac, he warns, might bite us back. Maybe we should put Ben Fountain’s face on that $250 bill.

Five Takeaways

• The Hyperreal Is the Real. Trump has blurred the line between reality and fantasy to masterful effect. Fountain’s next step: a pro wrestler running as his wrestling persona, the fake baked in and everyone knowing it’s fake. Suppose the country buys it. The surreal is the real. America has already reached that point.

• Why Wrestling. Jesse Ventura ran for governor as himself. Fountain’s innovation: a wrestler running as his character — Rasputin, back from the dead, holy man of the Russian Orthodox Church. Evangelicals defect because he’s speaking their language. The fake is the real.

• Late Tsarist Russia and Contemporary America. Extreme wealth inequality. Get-rich schemes. Quack religions. Extreme decadence. A social structure that cannot hold. Fountain read three or four Rasputin biographies. The parallels are striking — not just material but emotional.

• The Satirist as Realist. Fountain is a realist down to his bones. He didn’t set out to write satire. He set out to write the story authentically. The question of genre came afterwards. American reality is just Rasputin swimming the Potomac.

• Living in the Belly of the Beast. Forty-one years in Dallas, Texas — the most American city of all. For someone to the left of Gandhi, assumptions are always being challenged. That productive discomfort, not Brooklyn, is where this book comes from.

About the Guest

Ben Fountain is the author of Rasputin Swims the Potomac (Flatiron Books, June 9, 2026) and Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk. He lives in New Bern, North Carolina.

References

Rasputin Swims the Potomac by Ben Fountain (Flatiron Books, June 9, 2026): us.macmillan.com/books/9781250776549/rasputinswimsthepotomac
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain (2012)

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Chapters:

00:00:31 The $250 Trump banknote and a better satirist
00:01:48 What is the Potomac?
00:04:15 Why wrestling?
00:04:55 Jesse Ventura vs Rasputin
00:08:33 The hyperreal is the real
00:09:31 I’m a realist down to my bones
00:39:50 Living in Dallas: the belly of the beast
00:40:20 Rasputin’s religiosity and evangelicals
00:41:39 Late Tsarist Russia and contemporary America
00:44:52 Best beach reads — but more like Jaws
00:46:28 Sacha Baron Cohen to play Rasputin