PRAISE FOR THE TRUMPIAD

"A renaissance in the art of satire may be the only good to come out of Donald

Trump's presidency.  Evan Eisenberg’s delectable Trumpiad—abetted by Steve

Brodner's razor-sharp drawings—is a whacked-out high-rococo comedy to be

cherished alongside Alec Baldwin's and Melissa McCarthy's down-and-dirty

burlesques on SNL.  By channeling Alexander Pope's immortal takedowns of

eighteenth-century manners and morals, Eisenberg has found a way to respond

to our national emergency with uncommon wit, accuracy, and elegance."

 —Jed Perl

"Witty and wonderful."                                                                      —Edward Sorel

“Sophisticated and encyclopedic.” —Paul Berman, Tablet

"If writing well is the best revenge, then Evan Eisenberg has exacted his full measure

of vengeance in the Trumpiad, a true epic  about a mock President.  Deft and daring   

where its subject is bombastic, witty where he's whiny, crafty where he's crude, the

Trumpiad calls down on the head of its chosen anti-hero a seemingly infinite variety  

of the poetic weapon that Eisenberg has devised especially for this purpose:  a

rhymed stanza that might be called a Five-Line Thumper.  The Thumpers are like

snowflakes, you'd think—each of them floating, crystalline, and unique.  What fun

it is to see Trump buried beneath their avalanche."

 —Stuart Klawans    

"A must-read (and laugh-till-you-weep) for our times.  Puts the humor back in politics.

 And the poetry!"

—Sharon Dolin, winner of the Donald Hall Prize for Poetry

"Some of the wittiest, most ingenious comic rhymes since Lord Byron ripped Don Juan a

new one. As to their effective political power let me add: One never knows, do one?”

—Rafi Zabor, winner of the PEN / Faulkner Award for Fiction

“[A] mock epic to end all mock epics of our Gilded Orange Age… [Eisenberg’s] stanzas

—torrential, merciless, coruscating, and often irreproachably scabrous—bristle with

Hudibrastic brilliance… [Brodner’s] Zorroesque flamboyance in media from charcoal

and ink to magic-hour Winsor & Newton… Go ahead, judge the book by its cover.”

—Matthew Gurewitsch, beyondcriticism.com

“Trust Evan Eisenberg, whose The Recording Angel remains the finest meditation on

recorded music, to recognize the deficiency of rhyme in the era of our Mad Monarch. If

the merged couplets and quatrains of the Trumpiad convey the jests, however, it’s the

careful reportage that makes this the deliciously satisfying epic we wish we didn’t need

nearly as much as we do.” —Gary Giddins

“Eisenberg narrates the life of Trump, from his monied origin to his presidency, in

digestible five-lined stanzas. Complementing his caustic quips are politically charged

illustrations by Brodner…. [An] uproarious comedy.”

—Chronogram