There's very little pussyfooting around in Nicholson Baker's newest novel, Checkpoint. 
Weighing in at a thin 115 pages, Baker doesn't bother with niceties or
waste time preparing his readers for the subject at hand.  The
subject at hand is the assassination of President Bush, and Nicholson's
utter lack of fear in presenting it makes the act of reading this novel
feel more than a little subversive.

The tiny tome is a novel really only on Baker's say-so - since he
presents the story in the form of a transcript, it reads a lot more
like a stage play than prose.  The conversation recorded is
between two old friends.  Jay, a somewhat delusional
down-on-his-luck day laborer has asked his old friend Ben to come to a
hotel room in DC, and to bring a tape recorder.  Ben obliges,
believing that his friend is in some sort of crisis.  Thus begins
the story - with the click of the tape recorder - Jay wants to explain
his reasons for his impending assassination attempt.

The sparse style is reminiscent of David Mamet's assertion, born of
his experience writing radio plays, that a good playwright needs
nothing but the spoken lines.  No stage directions, no
scene-setting, no character backgrounds - Mamet feels that if it can't
be conveyed in the dialogue, it has no business being on a good
writer's page.  By this standard, Nicholson Baker is one of the
best living American writers.

Baker is also in top form here because he denies us any easy
judgments on the characters.  Jay, the would-be-assassin is
delusional, but some of his arguments are clearly cogent.  His
personal politics are tricky - he's not the left-wing nut job you might
typecast into such a role.  And Ben's reasons are muddled - does
he believe the arguments he's making against the assassination, or is
he chiefly concerned with not becoming an accomplice? 

The length and pace of this book makes it a tour de force.  By
taking on the assassination taboo head-on, Baker is able to craft from
it a deft framework to discuss American empire, apathy, and morality.

Read more:

• MSNBC - Target: The President: Nicholson Baker talks about his controversial new novel, 'Checkpoint'


• read more by Matthew Poe at midnight howl