Rasputin Swims the Potomac

A Novel

By: Ben Fountain

Narrated by: Ron Butler

ONE OF LITHUB"S MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2026

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.

Critic reviews

"Fountain turns this scathing satire to the most relevant story of our time: the twists and turns of American democracy as it hurtles toward authoritarianism." —LitHub

"Fiction is truer than real life in Rasputin Swims the Potomac, an audacious, rip-roaring, and terrifying good time. 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." —Maria Semple, bestselling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette and Go Gentle