Join First Light Books for an evening with Ben Fountain, whose new novel imagines an American president campaigning for an unconstitutional third term, a mysterious "weeping sickness" sweeping the country, and a professional wrestler named Rasputin enlisted to save the whole operation. If that sounds too crazy to be fiction, that's the point. Rasputin Swims the Potomac is political satire at full volume from the author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, and it might be the funniest, most terrifying novel you read this year.

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Maria Semple, bestselling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette, put it this way: "Don't read ABOUT this book. It will sound too crazy! Dive in and see for yourself. Ben Fountain is a prophet, comic genius and a master storyteller."‍

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A reception with the author will take place from 6:00 to 6:30 PM, followed by the conversation at 6:30 PM and a signing to close the evening. Tickets include a copy of the book and a reserved seat. Unreserved seats are available on a first come, first served basis. Free RSVPs are also encouraged.

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About the book

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One of LitHub's Most Anticipated Books of 2026

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Reporter Clarence Thomas Jr. is looking for a great story, former country music teen star Faith Spack has parlayed her fame into a job at the White House, and the two-term incumbent president is campaigning for a constitutionally dubious third term. After an outbreak at a campaign rally, a mysterious new pandemic of "weeping sickness" sweeps the nation, threatening the president's hold on the Oval Office. Desperate to retain power, he enlists the mystical pro wrestler Rasputin to help ensure his reelection and guarantee additional seasons of his presidential reality TV show, The Real West Wing.

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Hilarious, compelling, and tragically relevant, Rasputin Swims the Potomac is both an escape and a warning, a scathing satire that explores the twists and turns of American democracy as it hurtles toward authoritarianism.

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Kirkus (starred review) called it "a comic masterpiece. The current administration is finally getting the book it deserves." Booklist (starred review) called it "timely and terrifying, simultaneously wild and absurd yet eerily plausible."

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About the author

Ben Fountain was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and grew up in the tobacco country of the eastern part of the state. He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University School of Law. After graduating from Duke, he practiced law in real estate finance and banking for five years in Dallas, Texas, before leaving to write fiction.

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His New York Times bestselling novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction, the Center for Fiction's Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize, and the PEN New England-Cerulli Award for Excellence in Sports Writing. It was a finalist for the National Book Award in both the U.S. and the U.K., and was adapted into a feature film directed by three-time Oscar winner Ang Lee, starring Steve Martin, Kristen Stewart, and Vin Diesel.

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His short story collection Brief Encounters with Che Guevara received the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Barnes & Noble Discover Award for Fiction, and a Whiting Writers Award. His nonfiction book Beautiful Country Burn Again, a narrative of the 2016 presidential election, received the Carr P. Collins Award for best nonfiction book of the year from the Texas Institute of Letters. Rolling Stone wrote of Fountain: "There may be no writer alive today who better captures the manic, fevered, paranoid style in 21st-century America."

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Fountain was named the recipient of the 2024 Joyce Carol Oates Prize, awarded to a mid-career author of fiction by New Literary Project, and the 2024 Thomas Wolfe Prize from UNC-Chapel Hill. His short fiction has appeared in Harper's, Paris Review, Esquire, and Zoetrope: All-Story, among others, and has received an O. Henry Prize and two Pushcart Prizes. His nonfiction has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Guardian, Le Monde, and Texas Monthly. His reporting on post-earthquake Haiti was nationally broadcast on This American Life.

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He has taught at the University of Texas, both in the English Department and at the Michener Center for Writers, and served as University Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University. ​

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