Rasputin Swims the Potomac

ONE OF LITHUB'S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2026 - NAMED A BEST BOOK OF SUMMER BY THE L.A. TIMES & KIRKUS

"A comic masterpiece. The current administration is finally getting the book it deserves."--Kirkus (Starred Review)

From the award-winning, bestselling author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk comes a biting satire of American politics and a searingly intelligent novel about the cruel absurdities of contemporary life, centering on a world champion professional wrestler with presidential ambitions

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.

But as Rasputin's appeal threatens to exceed the president's, and the wrestler's supposedly supernatural powers start to seem like the real thing, the campaign finds itself trapped in a spandex-clad destiny no number of executive orders can control, one in which both Clarence and Faith are compelled to play increasingly large parts.

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.

Author: Ben Fountain
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Published: 06/09/2026
Pages: 416
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.20h x 6.40w x 1.50d
ISBN: 9781250776549


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 05/01/2026
Booklist 05/01/2026
Publishers Weekly 05/18/2026

About the Author
Fountain, Ben: - Ben Fountain's work has received the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Los Angeles Book Prize for Fiction, and a Whiting Writers Award, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award and runner-up for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. He lives in North Carolina.