Beck defends his novel as fiction, trumpets it as fact
Written by Kate Conway
Published
Someone should have told Glenn Beck that he can't have things both ways.
Two days after sourly ridiculing a negative Washington Post review of his new novel for suggesting fans might take the book's contents “as fact,” Beck repeatedly plugged The Overton Window by claiming that the book is based in fact.
The Post review, which also mocked the purported “thriller” for its lack of suspense and action, wrote that "[t]he danger of books like this is that radical readers may take the story's fiction for fact, or interpret the fiction -- which Beck encourages -- as a reflection of a reality that they must fend off by any means necessary." The review also suggested The Overton Window could end up playing a role similar to that of books like The Turner Diaries, which inspired the Oklahoma City bombing.
Beck found this outrageous, asking, "[D]id they ever say that about Tom Clancy, or Vince Flynn, or Brad Thor? I mean, hello? Hello? It's a thriller." He later continued:
BECK: And that's -- and that is also, that it's a dangerous, dangerous book because only radicals will read it and they will take the fiction as fact. You know, it's weird how many people read The Washington Post and take your fiction as fact. Isn't that strange? We at least admit ours is fiction.
I guess Beck's warped idea of admitting that his book is fiction includes not only stating flat-out that events in the book “could happen” but also repeatedly pushing the idea that the book is some sort of guide to understanding a current reality. On his radio show today, he stated:
BECK: There is a massive force arrayed against you, and I believe now it is so apparent that only those with scales on their eyes cannot see it. All you have to do is look for it. We'll push this out in the internet newsletter today at GlennBeck.com, and by the way, if you have a friend who is close to getting it -- just really close to getting it -- please pick up The Overton Window for them. It is a fiction book, written by me. Take the cover off. A fiction book, written by me, but the last -- the afterword, the last 20 or 30 pages -- are all what is fact in this book. What makes this thing a thriller and terrifying is the fact that it is, a lot of it, happening. Now it is a fictional story, but it really -- who knows who the players are, but the words that the villain uses are right out of progressive speeches. The things that happen could happen in America.
Media Matters previously documented that the “facts” that the book is “rooted in” track very closely with the frequently false things Beck has spent the last year and a half fear mongering about -- how the conspiracy theories in the book mirror the conspiracy theories he pushes on his show.
Does Beck really expect readers to be able to differentiate what's fictional story and what's not when he spends so much time blurring the border?