The Apprentice (book)
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| Author | Lewis Libby |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Historical fiction |
| Publisher | Graywolf Press |
| Released | August 1996 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 239 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 1-55597-245-4 |
The Apprentice is a novel written by Lewis Libby, former Chief of Staff to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, and first published in 1996. It is set in northern Japan in winter 1903, and centers on a group of travelers stranded at a remote inn due to a smallpox epidemic.
Libby supposedly spent more than 20 years working on the book and finished it in 1996. Despite his high office, it attracted scant attention when initially published. However, following his indictment in October 2005, for perjury, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice in special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Plame affair, the novel gained new attention when it was discussed in a New Yorker magazine "Talk of the Town" column.
The writer, Lauren Collins, reported that the novel was rife with sexual deviance of the kind typically denounced by conservatives. It brimmed with homoeroticism, included scenes of incest, and featured descriptions of many different bodily fluids.
While the response to the novel included much amusement, some readers found a few passages particularly disturbing. One in particular combined bestiality, pedophilia, prostitution, and biastophilia in just three sentences:
At age ten the madam put the child in a cage with a bear trained to couple with young girls so the girls would be frigid and not fall in love with their patrons. They fed her through the bars and aroused the bear with a stick when it seemed to lose interest. Groups of men paid to watch.
Another passage introduces necrophilia, as three hunters copulate with two freshly killed deer.
[edit] External links
- 'Scooter's Sex Shocker' - A New Yorker article.
- In Defense of Scooter Libby - plot summary of The Apprentice
