Checkpoint: A Novel

by John Freeman

Shortly after Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 steamrolled into theaters, The Onion ran one of its funniest spoof headlines in years: "Nation's Liberals Suffering From Outrage Fatigue." The accompanying article described liberals who were simply enervated by their anger.

What would happen, though, if instead of packing that anger away, someone allowed it to mushroom inside of them? The answer is apparent in Nicholson Baker's new novel, Checkpoint, a brief but provocative little Frisbee of a novel about political frustration. Like Baker's 1991 novel, Vox, the story unfolds like a transcript. Only here the conversation is between two men, Ben and Jay, talking in a Washington, D.C.-area hotel. Jay gets the ball rolling when he unloads this bombshell: "I'm going to assassinate the president."

Plenty of political thrillers and action movies have revolved around plots to assassinate a president, but the odd thing about Checkpoint is how real, and how current are the reasons pushing Jay over the edge. The novel's title comes from a recent incident in Iraq in which a family fleeing Basra were shot at because they reached out a hand to wave at soldiers. Two young girls were killed along with their grandfather, who had worn a pinstripe suit to look more American.

Jay's gripes with the president are actually very similar to Michael Moore's. He begins with the war in Iraq, crying bloody murder over the use of napalm and the death of innocent civilians. And then, like Moore, he snowballs this legitimate human rights complaint into a giant catchall of gripes, roaming from Cheney's corruption to Rumsfeld's chin to the president's annoying trademark smirk.

So how does Jay plan to do it? Well, for one, he's got smart bullets which need to simply marinate near a photograph of the target and they'll find their way to him. If that doesn't work, he's going to unleash a giant ball bearing and simply roll it down the hill and crush Bush. OK, so Bush won't have to worry about copycat crimes. But if enough people get their hands on this potent little read, he might just find himself a little behind that eight ball come Nov. 2.

Checkpoint: A Novel By Nicholson Baker Alfred A. Knopf, 115 pp., $15.95