By Rebecca Rosen Lum
He's been savaged by the best of them: Trevor Noah, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert.
But after perusing his quotes, veteran journalist and Guild Freelancers member Carol Pogash discovered there may be no richer source of belly laughs about Donald Trump than Donald Trump himself. And so springs Quotations from Chairman Trump, an illustrated compendium of the real estate magnate's words of wisdom – an e-book in its first incarnation, soon to emerge in a hardcover edition.
Courtesy of Rosetta Books
“I kept thinking that what he was saying was so extraordinary,” she said. “ I had tons and tons of quotes and I categorized them. They needed some context, but I found I could turn it into a narrative.”
It's all here, from dopes and clowns to intelligence (his own) and stupidity (others) ― unfiltered, unauthorized and jaw-droppingly unbelievable.
“If I wasn't laughing so hard I'd be crying in terror,” former USA Today publisher Larry Kramer says in his review of Quotations. “The experience of stopping to focus on each of these sayings is amazing” (Trump has issued no response other than to say that while he hates journalists, “I’d never kill 'em”).
It's been listed as a “hot new book” by Amazon and ranked No. 6 on political humor.
In a speedy turn-around, Pogash put together a proposal and called her agent, who made some tweaks and offered it to a couple publishers. It found a home with http://RosettaBooks.com/, a leading independent digital publisher, and is now available on Amazon.com.
The book also includes seven original illustrations, conceived of by Pogash and created by Corona Lupp, a designer at RosettaBooks, including Trump as Lady Liberty, Trump on Mount Rushmore, Trump in the White House and Trump reading his own Quotations from Chairman Trump – all playing into the parody of a Trump presidency.
Courtesy of Carol Pogash
“Some of his comments actually made sense,” Pogash mused. “He described Jeb Bush as dull, and I thought, he really did capture his weakness.” But what astonished her most was the flap that ensued when he called for barring Muslims from entering the country.
“He'd already said we should deport millions of Latinos from the country,” she said.
Pogash, who earned a master's degree in government from Georgetown University, is a veterannewspaper reporter and columnist, magazine writer and editor, TV reporter, Internet editor and writer, radio essayist and author. This is her third book. She wrote As Real As It Gets: The Life of a Hospital at the Center of the AIDS Epidemic, with a foreword by Randy Shilts, and Seduced by Madness: The True Story of the Susan Polk Murder Case, each of which took some two years to write.
Inspired by Stewart and Colbert, Quotations took five weeks.
“This one is really who I am,” she said. “I had a lot of fun. Humor is a big part of who I am and I'm very interested in politics.”
She is also a dedicated member of Pacific Media Workers Guild, a part of The News Guild/CWA. Formerly a San Francisco Chronicle reporter, Pogash has been a member of the freelance unit since its inception.
"There are practical reasons for joining the media guild including the fact that it provides me with an official looking press pass," she said. "If there’s ever any hope for journalists’ pay, benefits and conditions to improve, it will be through our working together in the union."
These days, authors carry the burden of promoting a book, and “I'm not happy about that.”
It's a natural for cable TV but the rounds of programs must wait until the hardcover edition comes out Jan. 26. Until then, “I'll do radio.”
Says Kramer, “I don't know about you, but I'm praying this becomes a best seller. It may be our country's last chance.”
The ebook is $4.99. The hardcover will be in the neighborhood of $14.99.