Checkpoint

by Nicholson Baker

From Nicholson Baker, best-selling author of Vox and the most original writer of his generation, his most controversial novel yet.

Genres: Fiction, Novels, Politics, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Literature, Plays

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Nicholson Baker is a contemporary American writer of fiction and non-fiction. He was born in Manhattan in 1957 and grew up in Rochester, New York. He has published sixteen books--including The Mezzanine (1988), U and I (1991), Human Smoke (2008), The Anthologist (2009), and Substitute (2016)--and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper's, the New York Review of Books, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Essays. He has received a National Book Critics Circle award, a James Madison Freedom of Information Award, the Herman Hesse Prize, and the Katherine Anne Porter Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999, Baker and his wife, Margaret Brentano (co-author with Baker of The World on Sunday, 2005), founded the American Newspaper Repository in order to save a large collection of U.S. newspapers, including a run of Joseph Pulitzer's influential daily, the New York World. In 2004 the Repository’s holdings became a gift to Duke University. Baker and Brentano have two children; they live on the Penobscot River in Maine.

Reviews

[Manny · Rating 3 out of 5]

ME: Hello?

SANE, WELL-MEANING FRIEND: So what's up?

ME: I'm reviewing Checkpoint.

SWF: Uh-oh.

ME: He's right. I'd like to shoot W too.

SWF: Isn't it a little late...

ME: Right between the eyes. No, that would be too quick. I'd like him to bleed to death slowly, and know what was going to happen. I'd...

SWF: Uh, Manny, you know Internet content is monitored these days.

ME: I don't care. I said I'd like to...

SWF: Hello! Content monitors! Manny doesn't really want to shoot former President Bush, he's just parodying Nicholson Baker's book!

ME: I SAID I DON'T CARE. I'M SERIOUS. I'D BE HAPPY TO PICK UP A GUN THIS MINUTE AND...

SWF: Jesus Christ, keep your voice down will you? At least, don't use all those capital letters. And you've never fired a gun in your life. You barely know which end the bullets come out of.

ME: Okay, okay. In fact, shooting him's not what I want to do. I'd rather have him taken to Abu Ghraib, stripped naked, covered in menstrual blood, then...

SWF: Look. Whatever you say about W, at least he kept the US safe from terrorists?

ME: Yeah right. With the small exception of 9/11. Which was carried out by Saudis, a country he has intimate ties to. I just can't believe people fell for that. Imagine how everyone would see it if a similar attack happened tomorrow, nearly all the terrorists turned out to be Kenyans, and Obama had told the CIA to ignore the intelligence chatter because it wasn't...

SWF: Look, be reasonable. You aren't seriously saying that W wanted to...

ME: I am. I think he just hates the US. He's done everything he can ruin this country. He's got us into the craziest and most expensive war in our history, he's trashed the economy with his insane policies, he's done his level best to destroy the Constitution. I don't understand why he did it though. Is he a Chinese agent? Maybe they're blackmailing him? Or more likely it's just resentment, because...

SWF: This is all crazy talk. Calm down. You know you don't mean any of it.

ME: Actually, it's not just the US. He hates the whole world. He intentionally blocked action on global warming for 8 years. We've now got maybe a 50% chance of stopping it before we reach the tipping point where the whole climate collapses, and civilization becomes impossible. That wouldn't make sense if he was a Chinese agent. In fact, I think he's probably the Anti-Christ. That false, sanctimonious...

SWF: Manny, you're raving. We'd better stop now. You go review some Proust, right? That usually calms you down. And take a couple of these.

ME: Mhm!

SWF: It's okay everyone. Manny's feeling better. He's finished with this review.

ME: READ BAKER'S BOOK! READ BAKER'S BOOK! READ... OW!

SWF: Nothing to see here folks. We're just leaving. No, he's fine. Thank you. Bye now...

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read some lovely short books this weekend, among them this strange little Iraq war polemic. I liked Baker’s The Mezzanine, though confess to finding the last third a slog (is the footnote dead? Discuss). No such problem here, as this all-dialogue number serves us quick and chin-stroking content from cover to cover. Two friends gather to discuss the ramifications of assassinating George W. Bush and talk tangentially about their lives.

This book makes brevity a narrative strategy: it’s too short to be “about” one thing in particular, to carry a political message. To me, it articulates that cloud of confusion when war was declared, when outrage swept across the world and most right-minded people wanted Bush’s head on a spike. Towards the end, the book argues against anger itself, dejectedly suggesting we should shake our heads and move on, being powerless to stop things. And, alas, it’d be right. Sad, funny, wacky, and deeply serious. Bravo.

[Dani Dányi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ez egy dialógusban megírt regény... Vagyis nem, ez inkább egy filozófiai dialógus, amit súlyosan elmarháskodnak, ez a két művelt középkorú amerikai csávó, Jay és Ben, két régi jóbarát. Jó, talán filozófiai írásnak nem állná meg a helyét, de hogy nem regény az tuti, hiába árulják regényként ("novel, rá van írva) szellősre van szedve (ugye, dialógus) és csak 111 oldal, amit egyhúzásra kiolvasol. Közben röhögsz, és szörnyülködsz.
Jay felhívja Bent, hogy baj van, és jöjjön le hozzá Washington D.C.-be egy szállodába, beszélni. Odaér a haverja, csupa aggodalom, erre Jay beindít egy diktafont, és ezt olvassuk, hogy mit beszélgetnek. Csak ez létezik, hogy miket mondanak. Jay erősen indít: meg fogja gyilkolni az elnököt, George W. Busht. A többit nem spoilerezem el, bár 2004 óta történelmi tény, hogy az illető elnököt nem gyilkolták meg.
Maga a szöveg viszont alapos politikai, rendszerkritikai pamflet, sok tárgyi tartalommal, az akkori iraki háború történéseivel és főleg a hátterével. Rengeteget rugózik az egyén felelősségén, és passzivitásán, az állampolgári lelkiismeretnek egy egészen különlegesen USA-beli bugyrából. Sok benne a konkrét röhögést kiváltó erős szókép, poén, abszurditás, de még több a konkrét morális dilemma. Mindeközben iszonyú sokat megtudhat a nem-amerikai olvasó az USA történelmének és külpolitikájának generációkon át öröklődő kritikájáról, az '50-es évektől Vietnámon át az Öböl-háborúig, mindenből a legmocskosabb, legvállalhatatlanabb részleteket. Gyorstalpaló a világrendőrszerep kritikájából.
A megoldási javaslat (az elnök precíz és célzatos eltávolítása) mellett persze messze több kőkemény érv szól, mint ellene. Mégsem úgy tettem le, hogy oké, akkor most felhívok pár embert, és véget vetek egy csomó igazán, valóban tűrhetetlen igazságtalanságnak és gaztettnek, és vállalom a kockázatot és a felelősséget. Valahogy nagyon nagy mutatvány ez az egész, és emellett az egyik legszórakoztatóbb politikai szatíra, amit valaha angolul olvastam.

[Adrianne Mathiowetz · Rating 4 out of 5]

At 115 pages long and by Nicholson Baker, you don't really have an excuse to not read this book. It'll take you like 2 hours, and he's fantastic.

I loved the format: two guys meet in a hotel room and record their conversation about assassinating the president (that'd be George W.) on tape. You don't get any description of the environment or the characters beyond what is in their dialogue, and yet you get a real sense of where they are and what they sound like. It's practically written to become a radio drama.

Baker doesn't assume his readers are dummies: this book is riddled with casual references to American war history and politics -- all you'll get will be the name of a country, or a person, or even "it's like that guy, with the prisoners in 19XX." Unfortunately for me, I am a dummy, and I think that really detracted from my experience of the book. I felt like I needed a Checkpoint References Guide.

So likely, had I paid attention in high school classes and watched the news and read the papers, this would be a five star book for me. Unfortunately I was spending too much time crafting paper airplanes with "will u go to the prom w/me? y/n" scrawled inside, and thus was incapable of appreciating this book beyond 4 stars.

[Manik Sukoco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Checkpoint is not a call to arms but rather against radical action. It seems a reasonable, almost laudable conclusion, but only because Baker has taken the most outrageous of actions - assassination (made all the more real because, at the time the book was published the target, the junior Bush, was still in office) - which is per se beyond the pale. The solution offered here - embrace passivity, crawl into your shell, don't worry too much about what those big, bad politicians are doing - is entirely insupportable, and yet Baker makes it look like a happy end.
The biggest weakness of Checkpoint is that Jay is so much on the fringes of society. He is clearly mentally unstable - not necessarily nuts, but so far outside the norm that he can be dismissed as a kook (or as Ben says, "completely misguided"). Checkpoint is a book that toys with extremes - Ben's complete passivity and Jay's threats of unacceptable action - but, of course, Jay's threats are more a cry for help than real threats. The psychological approach to addressing political problems (at least on the individual level) - there doesn't seem to be a couch involved, but there might as well be - is also an unsatisfactory one.
The message of this novel is an ugly one (though entirely different from the widely held pre-publication concerns), but it's cleverly presented and quite artfully done. It's a very short book - standard play length, more or less - but Baker paces it quite well, and there is a decent narrative arc. The conversation sounds fairly realistic - the familiar banter of old friends is especially well captured -, and it would probably play reasonably well on the stage.
Significant issues are raised, in particular how average citizens deal with the horrible events of the past years and the actions of many of those elected and appointed to the highest offices in the land - the weight and guilt of being an American in the contemporary world (comparable to being a German after World War II). Murder is, of course, not a solution, but Baker disappointingly offers no alternatives except the most radical - complete withdrawal.
Checkpoint is ultimately truly a small novel: despite ostensibly being about changing the course of history it is solely about the redemption of the individual (with the help of some amateur psychotherapy). Society at large is only the concern of the mad, and once they've been cured - well, apparently society can just go screw itself.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book you probably heard about being about the assassination of George W Bush which is about assassinating George W Bush.

The thing is, it's about assassinating George W Bush as much as 'Anna Karenina' is about emotional Russian people.

Not to compare in quality, you see, its just that pigeonholing it is totally missing the point.

What it's more about is a certain kind of political frustration, the kind most people nowadays likely have when the Shrub's ugly mug pops onto the tube. And how your political opponents drive you so mad that you just...wanna...pop 'em one.

But you don't. The would-be Hinkley here is an obvious psychotic and fool and his interlocutor is reasoned and sympathetic but ultimately urbane and decently rational in his audience.

It really is more about action than it is about spite. The whole point of the book is that its NOT about politics as much as it is getting PAST politics- the english teacher character advises the sociopath (and his readers) that when they read something in the news that pisses them off, to grab a favorite book off the shelf and copy it out, longhand, word for word, until you get sick of it. "It's like running a comb through your mind." Bravo for that.

It totally is, isn't it?

Redemption and ease through beauty. That's what keeps you sane. And it might be, that's just what the loudmouth dbags on the other side of the aisle are just missing out on. Maybe.

Nonetheless, killing the president is not the right way to go (seems silly to have to write that, but after all he is infuriating!) and turning back into the calmer (relatively speaking!) world of books and culture is the way to heal yourself of these ills.

A shame that most reviewers seemed to miss the point COMPLETELY. Assuming I've gotten it right, which, well, you never know. But still....it's a good thing to take away.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Baker is a fine writer, but he seems to have let emotion get the better of him here, because this book is nothing but useless polemic. There was no attempt to persuade the reader with any well thought examples and counterexamples, out of which some sort of synthesis might occur. Rather, there was just one guy, who was a pretty obviously a complete nutjob and not someone anyone would be inclined to pay much attention to, yelling at another guy who doesn't say anything much other than, "Well, *that"* sounds like a crummy idea. Are you crazy?" As such, it came across as not as a piece of persuasive writing so much as a 120-page long list of harsh criticisms about the current administration (GW Bush, for those of you reading this in 2009 or later, after Bush and his minions are thankfully long gone), all of which you've either heard before or could think of yourself. There was no illumination, just the feeling that Baker was vomiting onto the page. In short, pretty much a waste of time.

[Alan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is a slender book, an angry book, and a deeply disturbing book, and I have to say up front that I did not like it very much—not nearly as much as I've liked Nicholson Baker's other work. Checkpoint is written as the transcript of an audio recording made in a Washington, D.C., hotel room, in which two men (referred to only as "Ben" and "Jay") discuss the assassination of the President of the United States. Which probably seemed like, if not a good idea, at least a talking point, at a time when the sitting president was an aggressively incompetent Republican surrounded by sinister cronies, all of whom seemed actively engaged in demolishing both domestic tranquility and international relations.

Jay is the man with the plan. Ben tries to talk him out of going through with the act. The ensuing discussion is not so much about strategies as it is about reasons, and consequences. Baker names names and pulls events from the news of the day as well as from history to justify both Ben's and Jay's positions. The transcript ends as they leave the hotel room, a decision made. The nature of that decision... well, by the end of their meeting, what Jay and Ben are going to do is no longer in doubt.

This slim volume slipped by me, somehow, upon its publication in 2004. However, the accumulation of a little historical perspective may have been a good thing this time. Getting through this Checkpoint today wasn't easy, but back then it would have been even harder.

[Ron Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last time a US president and Nicholson Baker appeared in the same sentence, the subject was sex: In 1998, Kenneth Starr discovered that the world's most famous intern had given Bill Clinton a copy of Mr. Baker's erotic novel "Vox."

But this time around, the subject is violence: Baker's upcoming novel, "Checkpoint," is about two men in a Washington hotel room arguing about whether to assassinate President Bush.

A work of literary fiction, it carries Michael Moore's case against Mr. Bush to extremes that the partisan moviemaker has never dared approach. It may also be the most specifically articulated argument about killing a sitting US president ever published by a major commercial publisher.

"Checkpoint" reads like an attempt to exorcise anger at Bush's international policies, but in a phone interview from his home in Maine, the author says, "No, this is a book about the rage and sadness of war, and about the moral consequences of war, boiled down to a conversation between two people. I want readers to think things through. Sometimes a novel is the best way of making that happen."

Thousands of popular novels are published every year based on fictional or real-life crimes, but in the current atmosphere of heightened national security, Baker's dramatization of a fact-based argument about killing Bush could be seen as incendiary. But does that make it illegal?

Threatening a president's life is a violation of US law, and Secret Service agents will show up on the doorsteps of people who, even casually or in jest, make a statement about killing the nation's commander in chief.

But the US courts also protect free speech and the press. In a 1969 case, the US Supreme Court said speech that advocates violence or illegal action could not be suppressed "except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action."

"You have a substantial right to create fiction no matter what the subject matter," says David Greene, executive director of the First Amendment Project, a nonprofit advocacy group. "But it's slightly complicated when you're talking about threats against the president. If this were an author who was less acclaimed, you'd find him at a minimum being checked out by law enforcement. This Justice Department is more likely to investigate something like this."

FBI and Justice Department spokesmen refused to comment on Baker's book or to indicate if officials were investigating it.

"Checkpoint" had been scheduled to appear Aug. 25, just days before the Republican National Convention in New York, but this week Alfred A. Knopf pushed the book's 60,000 first printing up to Aug. 10.

The 115-page novella is framed as the transcript of a conversation between fictional characters Jay and Ben at a hotel a few blocks away from the White House in May 2004. Jay claims that he wants a record of his motives for killing the president later that day "for the good of humankind."

The two men apparently haven't seen each other for several years. While Ben has been enjoying some success in life, Jay has lost his job, left his family, and grown obsessed with President Bush's actions in Iraq. He often sounds mentally unbalanced.

Through much of their conversation, Jay recounts real stories lifted from news reports about the horrors endured by Iraqi civilians in both accidental and deliberate military encounters. The book's title comes from a particularly gruesome tragedy in April 2003 when US soldiers at a checkpoint near Najaf opened fire on a family of 17 Shiites. Eleven of them in their 1974 Land Rover, including six children, were killed.

Jay's argument swings wildly from an insane rant to caustic political analysis. Though most of his weapons - Bush-seeking bullets and a giant uranium ball - are clearly delusional, his final plan is pedestrian and deadly. While largely agreeing with his friend's recitation of Bush's sins, Ben struggles to calm Jay and get him to abandon his illegal plot.

"There are really strict legal standards on what constitutes a threat, and certainly a fictional conversation between fictional characters - it's almost impossible to imagine that that could rise to the level of a legal threat against the president," says Larry Siems, director of the Freedom to Write Program and of international programs for the PEN American Center. "Characters in novels don't kill presidents."

But, he notes, "there have been encroachments recently on the terrain of creative freedom that are connected with people's fears and anxieties.

"We know the Secret Service has visited high school classrooms where students have produced art that has made reference to violence. The whole atmosphere has shifted enormously."

The Supreme Court has been very clear about the rights of authors to write whatever they want so long as they are not intentionally inciting imminent violence, according to ACLU president Nadine Strossen. She says, however, that under Section 215 of the Patriot Act, "Mr. Baker wouldn't know and he wouldn't be able to find out if he's under surveillance. And anybody the FBI asks about him would be forced to be under that veil of secrecy."

Baker, meanwhile, said, "I'm trying to let the book do its own talking as much as possible.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0730/p1...

[Clifford · Rating 2 out of 5]

Novel in dialogue. Jay is conservative (he also goes on an anti-abortion rant), but is troubled by the war in Iraq and plans to kill George W. Bush. His friend Ben comes to see him and tries to talk him out of it.

Should be updated for the Trump era.

[Chance Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Checkpoint transports us back to a time when George Bush was committing crimes against humanity instead of painting kittens, and Circuit City was still in business. Published in 2004, it distills the anger and frustration of that time period into a conversation between two people -- one man who wants to assassinate the president, and the other who tries to talk him out of it.
To keep from getting too grim (and to keep the FBI off his ass) Baker makes Jay, the would-be assassin, into a bit of a crack pot. He has remote-controlled razor-sharp CDs, a remote-controlled boulder to squash the president ("It's made of depleted uranium and it's a hundred tons of metal that just rolls, baby."), or homing bullets. Everything is remote controlled. He also thinks about just storming the White House through the fence because "the chances that somebody is going to be running toward the White House at any given moment is zero." Crazy, right?!
Ben, the sane friend, tries to talk Jay out of it by getting him to see context. For Ben, it's not Bush's fault. Well, it's not only Bush's fault. History leads up to this. They go back and discuss and dissect prior presidencies and conflicts. It's important to have context. At one point, Jay rails, "We don't know the first thing about the countries we're dealing with." Ben responds, "Generally we know the first thing, but not the second and third."
Finding out the second and third things are important. But where do you stop? If you keep researching the past, you find out the second thing, the third thing, the fourth thing, the fifty-seventh thing, until either you're just as crazy as Jay or you're dead from exhaustion/old age. Where is the balance between anger at the now and trying to understand the then?
At first, I thought this was an unusual Nicholson Baker novel. But I quickly realized this fits right in with one of his recurring motifs -- people talking about and analyzing their own fantasies. Instead of describing a chain of men masturbating on forklifts (in Vox) or stopping time and writing porn (The Fermata) or having sex with a body without a head (House of Holes) it's a fantasy of a different type: a power fantasy. Killing the president; saving the world. Aren't all fantasies about power in some way?
These three men (Baker included) come to no conclusion about how to achieve this kind of power, but add context through interesting tangents. Their discussion on the hypocrisy of pro-life and pro-choice will probably always be relevant. (How can you be pro-life yet support a war? How can you be pro-choice and be against it?) And they also worry about the homogenization of America. "Why the heck is anyone bothering to drive anywhere in this country?" Ben asks. "Wherever you go, it's the same."
This book has been around for eleven years, and we can still have the same discussions. Just replace some of the names.

[Kevin Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

Baker taps into a collective desire to see W. and his cohorts pay for the monstrous crimes against humanity that they're guilty of -- and those transgressions are obviously pretty monstrous to compel such a humane and determined pacifist like Nicholson Baker to contemplate the assassination of anyone! Still, the drama-like structure of two lifelong friends working this all out on tape feels contrived and lifeless -- it seems Baker was aspiring for a Beckett-like piece but it reads more like an X-files rejected t.v. script. But Baker is a fine writer and every once in a while that flashes through (for example, after a long rant against abortion by one of the speakers, his friend says "boy, you must really make friends at parties.") And there is an undeniable cathartic quality upon reading this book when you truly contemplate the egregiously evil things W. and his crew have done in the world:

"...I want the man to crawl on his hands and knees down the streets of Baghdad saying, 'I am so sorry, folks. I am so sorry that I put you through this. Just because I'm a reformed alcoholic and I needed a little war buzz, I destroyed your country, and I killed your families. And I am so fucking profoundly sorry for that.'"

Really, is that too much to ask: true repentance? For sharing that vision of justice alone, I will give this book two stars.

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two Generation Xers have a long rambling conversation about the cold war and the George W. Bush administration. The plot would work better as a movie.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Espléndido retrato de la América contemporánea, Checkpoint, es una obra controvertida pero muy lúcida que deja una enorme poso de reflexión. Y es que este breve diálogo entre dos amigos de toda la vida, trata cuestiones fundamentales que nos atañen a todos, más allá de tener o no la nacionalidad norteamericana.

Nicholson Baker firma la autoría de este breve libro. Confieso que no había leído nada de Baker nunca y, después de esta lectura, creo que me estaba perdiendo mucho. Baker es un buen escritor que cuenta con un estilo de escritura sencillo aunque un poco burdo y ejecutado con gran ingenio. Para conseguir el efecto deseado usa una prosa muy dinámica, desarrollada de forma un poco caótica, un lenguaje con un punto vulgar y cotidiano que seguro que se ha "españolizado" por la traducción y unas inexistentes descripciones. Pero lo más interesante son los personajes. Sin duda alguna, llevan todo el peso de la novela bajo sus hombros. Ben y Jay representan de forma excelente al americano medio y, por extensión aunque salvando un poco las distancias, al ciudadano occidental medio. Si bien es cierto que la construcción de estos personajes no es particularmente brillante, para el tipo de pieza teatral que el autor ha montado es más que suficiente.

Checkpoint o punto de control habla sobre el descontento que la ciudadanía siente sobre los gobiernos, en especial, cuando meten a sus países en una guerra estúpida y absurda en la que la mayoría de las bajas son de civiles inocentes. Así que Jay, un ciudadano hasta ahora respetuoso con la ley, cita a Ben, su mejor amigo, para explicar el plan que quiere llevar a cabo: matar al presidente de los EEUU. A partir de aquí ambos personajes se enzarzan en un interesantísimo diálogo en el que van desgranando las causas que han hecho que Jay tome esa determinación. Usando la historia y la actualidad como punto de partida, ambos amigos nos van hablando de los horrores de la guerra, la corrupción del sistema económico y político estadounidense y de la necesidad de depurar responsabilidades por las numerosas víctimas, que los dos saben, jamás tendrán justicia. Estamos ante un portentoso debate sobre los males que azotan nuestra sociedad moderna. Y sin embargo tengo un par de objeciones a esta pieza teatral. La primera son las referencias. La obra está plagada de ellas, pero como no conozco demasiado sobre la Historia de la América contemporánea, me ha costado seguir el aluvión de datos y nombres. La segunda tiene que ver con el final. El desenlace me parece correcto pero un poco simple. Al final es lo de siempre, un par de ejemplares humanos que viven en el hipócrita mundo de la clase media, arropada y protegida por sus enormes privilegios, capaz de ver el sufrimiento ajeno pero no entrar en acción para ayudar a nadie. Y cuando lo intentan… pues se queda solo en eso, en un intento sin ningún valor o efecto.

Definitivamente, Checkpoint es un libro que sirve para ilustrar lo harta que está la gente común de que la manipulen y la mientan. Pero también nos enseña como nos importan mucho más otras cosas como para meternos en el berenjenal de tener que cambiar todo el sistema. El statuo quo se mantiene gracias a eso y, por ello, miles de personas sufren de manera injusta. Pero tendremos que esperar hasta que seamos nosotros los que nos encontremos delante de un punto de control, con soldados armados hasta los dientes, para comprender algo por fin.

[Jack Wolfe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because sometimes you wanna read about the president being assassinated!

Nicholson Baker is a boomer dude who seems to be more appreciated by young-ish people than the average boomer dude writer of his ilk (his ilk: wordy, somewhat self-obsessed, very sex-obsessed, etc). He clearly takes cues from the generation before him (his book "U and I" is a tribute to Updike) but things that seem annoying when you read them in Roth and Mailer are kind of charming when you read them in Baker. When Baker writes about sex, for example, he seems to realize that there are things more important in the world than his pleasure at any given moment (you don't get this from Roth). And when Baker writes about politics, he doesn't do it from the conventional 20th century male writer stance of "partisan Democrat with grumpy, reactionary, sexist status-quo defending," but from the position of, umm, very outraged pacifist. Basically, Baker seems to care about people, and he looks at people not with the detached, unsentimental view of an all-knowing deity, but with genuine curiosity and warmth. (I won't review it because I didn't read every piece in it, but the video game essays in "How the World Works," in which he has things to say about video games other than "they're stupid" and "they cause kids to be violent," are like a model for how to be a tolerant, inquisitive, rational human being.) So yeah, I find Baker very easy to love and admire...

"Checkpoint" is a book that I'm pretty sure was NOT admired when it came out, and you can understand why: it was published in 2004, when even suggesting that George W. Bush was probably not the best guy for us to have as president made you an extremely dangerous Al-Qaeda associate. And of course Baker does more than that here... He devotes a hundred pages to a dialogue about the pros and cons of murdering not just any ol' imaginary president, but the very squinty-eyed maniac who happened to actually occupy the White House at that moment.

The book is, in a word, ballsy. Nothing about it was revelatory, to me, and some of it was kind of annoying (there is too much time spent on the pro-life stance... which Baker curiously defends?). But fifteen years later, "Checkpoint" is mainly a potent reminder of how much the Bush II administration fucking sucked. The characters in this book are, umm, upset. AND THEY SHOULD BE. In this the third year of the Pussy Grabber, the white-washing of the pre-Trump era is more profound and upsetting than ever. Let's be real: George W. Bush was an utter disgrace, a stooge for corporate power, a fetishist of war and torture, and an idiot, who stocked his cabinet full of fiends hell-bent on destroying the world, who sank us in the mire of several wars, tanked our economy, and more or less guaranteed that I was gonna be a bitter and underemployed millennial for the rest of my life. Fuck him. I fucking loved reading "Checkpoint," this little three star book of rage.

[Gordon Blake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Я поставил себе цель прочитать пятьдесят книг в этом году (2019), но при этом не учел, что являюсь законченным лентяем, и когда поставленная задача стала казаться невыполнимой, я предпринял довольно изобретательный и ловкий маневр: читать книги потоньше. В "Чекпойнте" Бейкера всего-навсего сто с лишним страниц, поэтому можно сказать, что она выбрала меня самостоятельно. Начав читать ее утром, я надеялся уже к вечеру добавить один легкий пунктик к моему книжному вызову. Как выяснилось, он оказался не таким уж и легким.

Как и в случае с "Vox", перед нами снова новелла, полностью состоящая из диалога двух людей. Джей и Бен (оба - мужчины) находятся в номере отеля в Вашингтоне, они сидят друг напротив друга, камера включена, "проверка, проверка", видимо, разговор будет записываться. Когда Бен спрашивает, "Зачем ты меня позвал?", ответ Джея сражает наповал: "Я собираюсь убить президента (Джорджа Буша)". Вот это начало. Затем Джей посвящает друга в подробности плана, который, на секундочку, включает в себя применение пуль, которые заранее пролежали несколько суток в шкафчике вместе с фотографией Буша, отчего приобрели способность самонаводиться в его лицо. Сразу становится понятно, что Бейкер не относится к этому всерьез, и не видит в поступке героя решения сложившейся проблемы. Бен, понятное дело, не собирается в этом участвовать, он напуган, растерян, и пытается отговорить Джея. Герои активно обсуждают агрессивную политику США в отношении стран третьего мира, и, черт подери, мне стало немного совестно, что я незнаком с правлением Буша, и оттого не заметил множество параллелей, которые проводит Бейкер. Книга сама по себе очень агрессивна, персонажи чуть ли не слюной брызжут от ярости, но внимание, небольшой спойлер - заканчивается все очень мирно. Или же нет? Далее отрывок в моем переводе:

JAY: Помнишь ту фотографию девушки, бегущей девушки?
BEN: Какой девушки?
JAY: Девушки во Вьетнаме, убегающей от напалма? Она совершенно голая, она плачет.
BEN: А, да, да.
JAY: То есть, они использовали напалм в Ираке.
BEN: Я что-то об этом слышал.
JAY: Вот так вот просто взяли и использовали. И поначалу они это отрицали. Пока это не опубликовали в газете. Напалмовые бомбы. И какой-то парень из отдела PR в Пентагоне написал возмущенный ответ: "Мы НЕ использовали напалм, мы избавились от его запасов много лет назад, всё это - ГРУБАЯ ОШИБКА и МЕДВЕЖЬЯ УСЛУГА ВАШИМ ЧИТАТЕЛЯМ", и тому подобное. Ну, и потом, конечно, оказывается, что, ну, как бы да, они стреляют ракетами, полными этой жижи, которая вызывает интенсивное горение, и, как бы да, они используют ее, чтобы сжигать людей заживо, и, ну да, все командующие Армии называют ее "напалм", но технически это не напалм, потому что это не нафта-поли-толи-моли-что-то-там, да пофиг. Какой бы ни была формула, когда они впервые его изобрели.

[CM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can there be an angrier novella than this one?

Here two men, Jay and Ben, are meeting in a hotel room and they are recording their conversation. Jay has a plan, he is going to kill George W. Bush, the POTUS at the time, and Ben is trying to talk him out of it. Their conversation, mostly by Jay, spans from the disturbing details of the Iraq War, conspiracy theory (aspartame controversy), politics of abortion to America after cold war, and of course, the ethics of murder and war. The format is close to a play script, except we are not given any stage direction.

Jay can be quite fitting to the label of "wacko" with his special homing bullets (putting the bullets with a photo of Bush would get these bullets locked on Bush's face??? ) and other implausible gadgets but his anger and frustration towards the establishment seem so raw and genuine. Ben is the voice of reason here but he doesn't seem to be doing his job very well (his argument is usually quite simplistic) but I guess that's what we do when we try to persuade someone already so determined, by appealing to emotion. This portrayal of a friend talking another out of a deadly deed is quite convincing but by limiting Ben's response to mostly that friendly talk, the reader may find Jay just a mouthpiece of the author's view and that could qualify this book as propaganda.

A controversial POTUS, a war in the middle east, a debate between pro-choice and pro-life...it's hard to deny the relevance of this little book.

[Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

What to say, what to say...
I seem to turn to Nicholson Baker and I seem to constantly be disappointed by his work. Perhaps it's because they all seem to be more about Nicholson Baker than about the characters. But that's only part of it. This book has unlocked my true feelings about all of Baker's books: I just don't like them. I don't like the artificial meandering, the juvenile anger, the lack of character development. And it's all made worse by the wonderful writing that's found in all his books, even this one. In the end though, this book and most of his books (that I've read) are just BS and not really worth my time.
This books is a dialogue between to friends. One wants to commit a crime, the other wants to talk him out of it. Late in the book, it's confirmed that these people are in their 50s though they talk like 20 year olds did in the 1950s. They talk politics (of 2004) but their gripes and anger are of the populist kind which boils down to "politicians bad". In that respect perhaps Baker was prescient, but it goes no further. By the end, its just two voices in the breeze of history, one measured, the other naive, both kinda dim, neither condemned or criticized. It all seems so needless, to say and to read.

[CëRïSë · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reasons I picked up this book from the library's free shelf:

1. It was a nice, slim size.

2. I was familiar with the author, having read The Mezzanine --which I only just now realized I somehow entirely failed to review, here or elsewhere.

3. It was written in the format of a play, which would allow me to check off Reading Challenge tag #47.

I had absolutely no idea what it was about, and deliberately avoided the jacket synopsis, so was pleased to discover an incredibly tightly-written (no stage cues--just dialogue!), engaging story that was simultaneously very much of its own time (2004) and eerily appropriate for ours. It was funny, tragic, pedantic, and surreal in surprisingly equal measure.

The premise: a dialogue between two old friends, one of whom wants to kill George W. Bush for the atrocities he has committed in Iraq and to prevent him from wreaking further havoc.

Reading Challenge tags: #11, one-word title#27, can finish in a day; #42, own but have never read; #47, a play

[tartaruga fechada · Rating 3 out of 5]

"But there I was with my fist in the air, I'm sobbing, I'm screaming with these people because we all sensed and we knew, regardless of what we did or didn't have in common in other ways, we all knew that the war that the United States was waging on that patchwork country was, was -- it was ushering a new kind of terribleness into the world. And we knew that we had to do something. So we marched and marched and marched, and we shouted till we couldn't shout anymore and then we all went home and we put on our pajamas or our whatevers, and we went to sleep and we woke up the next morning and what?"

"Soon they're going to discover some hormonal thing that leads to right-wing behavior, some very specific deficiency combined with an overdose. You end up mean-spirited, with a high, whiny voice."

"Of course he's not as bad as Hitler. But we've reached a point beyond the normal -- We've reached a point of intolerability."

[Downward · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book accesses an anger that I almost forgot I had but which almost consumed me in the early 2000s; it features a depth of hopelessness which can only be cured through a prescription of extreme action, in this case the violent assassination of a sitting president. the book does not advocate that. in fact, the books major flaw is that it presents as binary propositions assassination and passivity, but it's hard not to view these as near-real people, in spite of the kookiness of character. two men meet in a hotel room. one of them wants to murder George W Bush. the other tries to convince him to not do it. that's the entire book, but it feels active and good and full of that specific moment in history where those choices almost did feel binary, a choice that is reactivating itself in an equally troubled time here with the only hope being stepping out from behind those choices and activating a third.

[Julian Dunn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have enjoyed many other Nicholson Baker works, like Vox, but I have absolutely no idea why he wrote this book. Nothing really happens during the book (it's a dialogue between two people, written as a transcript of an audiotape), it doesn't end up anywhere either good or bad, it doesn't truly explore either of the two speakers' personalities, it just ... falls flat.

The only possible explanation I can think of for why this book even exists is that he was extremely distraught by some of the actions George W. Bush and his minions, like Dick Cheney, took during the second Iraq War, and this was his way of playing out a few fantasies about what he might do about it if he weren't Nicholson Baker. But that's about it.

[Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found Baker’s Checkpoint suprisingly relevant to the current moment. The frustration Jay and Ben feel about the injustices of the Iraq war is so relatable to the way I find myself feeling in light of what’s happening in Gaza today (as American tax dollars continue to fund the indiscriminate murder of Palestinians).

I think what Baker does so wonderfully is to acknowledge and validate this frustration, but then to encourage us to take a break from it. Not as an act of apathy, but of self-preservation and for the good of our communities. It’s also a reminder to thank the Bens in our lives; the old friends who are willing to show up and listen, and pick us up when life has dragged us down.

3.5/5

[Jack Cheng]

I'm a fan of Nicholson Baker's but this title didn't even register on me until I picked up this slim novella. It's... not great. Presented as a dialogue between two friends, one of whom wants to kill the president, it's basically a political rant. What's more, it takes place during the HW Bush administration. Now, I agree that the war in Iraq was a criminal waste of lives and money, but in 2020 it's almost comical to read someone rant about how terrible Bush was (and he was!) when we have someone so exponentially worse in the White House.

[Stewart Mitchell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weird little book framed as a conversation between two men, one of whom is planning to - can I say this? - assassinate George W. Bush.

Baker is the perfect author for something like this and one of the only writers who’d even attempt it. I really wonder how this book would feel if I had been reading it in 2004 - it reads well now that there’s some distance between myself and the historical events mentioned here, but did this feel too immediate/attention-seeking when it was published? Hard to tell.

I’m officially 2 books down in my COVID quarantine reading frenzy. On to the next one.

[Kristen's Bookshelf · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how much of the content in this book is historical fact vs conspiracy theory vs flat out fiction but its going to have me Googling later for sure, I'm intrigued...
Set entirely in a hotel room and formatted like a transcript from a cassette tape, the narrative unfolds as two friends engage in an intense conversation that revolves around a plan to assassinate the President of the United States.
I found the story very thought-provoking and a stimulating read that challenges conventional narratives about activism and dissent.

[zunggg · Rating 1 out of 5]

A shallow political rant from Bush Jr's first term, done up as a fictional dialogue. I suppose Baker would argue it's a portrayal of the despair and confusion felt by many Americans (and me) at the time, but neither character has nearly enough depth to make that work. There's a brief discussion of conspiracy theories which is perhaps prescient, but really the whole thing seems especially juvenile in light of the Trump era's manifold monstrosities.

Mercifully short but still one of the more pointless ways of spending an hour and a half.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

More of a glorified rant than a novel. Some typical Baker wit, but nothing like the mundane brilliance of The Mezzanine.

9/10/2025 evening edit - It was already weird reading this during the 2nd Trump administration. Took an extra dark turn today with the events in Utah. I don't really want to provide any commentary on that. It's just...chilling.

[V.]

I'm sure this would've been tiresome or provocative or something at the time, but now it's kind of interesting just as a time capsule of a particular political moment. And Nicholson Baker is a good writer. But this book is really nothing special.

Kind of makes a good diptych with "The Fever", actually; they have a lot in common, and I think reading this has even softened me on "The Fever" a little bit. But in neither case is this a strong recommendation.

[em · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up
interesting. i guess that’s the best way to put it. i laughed out loud at a few bits, i thought the structure/form was interesting and was well written. i shouldn’t have been but i was still a bit caught off guard by the anti-abortion stuff about halfway through but they didn’t linger on it Too long. idk. interesting read not sure if i would go out of my way to recommend but, on the other hand, i read it in less than 2 hours, so maybe give it a shot if you are interested.