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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRevisiting Bill O'Reilly's creepy-assed 1998 novel
In 1998, Bill OReilly published his first and, so far, only novel: Those Who Trespass: A Novel of Television and Murder. The main character is a violently bitter journalist named Shannon Michaels, who, after being pushed out of two high-profile positions, takes revenge on four of his former colleagues by murdering them one by one.
On Wednesday, shortly after OReilly was ousted at Fox News, the apparent result of a mounting protest against his long record of alleged workplace sexual harassmentand, more to the point, the financial damage that this protest was doing to the networkI picked up a copy of Those Who Trespass and read it straight through. The novel, peppered with rants about ex-wives, newsroom politics, and the Long Island Expressway, is an astonishing read for many reasons, including OReillys credible ability to write in free indirect discourse. Another is the unchecked lust for revenge and violence that permeates the novel. And there is the fact that a veteran newsman preys upon a younger female co-worker in the very first scene.
The second sentence of Those Who Trespass describes Ron Costello, a correspondent for Global News Network, on assignment in Marthas Vineyard and struggling with a basic human need, the need for some kind of physical release. Costello spots a pretty camerawoman at a party, happily notes that shes had too much vodka, and approaches her with intense sexual hunger. Costello is universally loathed at his network, OReilly writes, but Costello doesnt mind: His energy was directed toward getting as much as he could of what he wanted. And tonight he wanted this freelance GNN camerawoman named Suzanne. He wanted her in a big way. When Suzanne rejects Costello, hes furious. (Goddamn bitch. Shell be sorry, he thinks.) Then the vengeful Michaels kills Costello by shoving a silver spoon through the roof of his mouth and into his brain.
As Nicholas Lemann noted in a piece about OReilly, from 2006, for this magazine, the feud between Michaels and Costello in Those Who Trespass is based on OReillys experience at CBS, in the eighties, during the Falkland Islands War. OReilly and his crew had captured exclusive footage of a riot in Buenos Aires, which CBS spliced into a report delivered by the veteran network correspondent Bob Schieffer, who never mentioned OReilly by name. In the novel, this is exactly what happens to Michaels, who, while still in Argentina, confronts Costello and assaults him in front of their co-workers. He is blacklisted from the network, and spends the next decade plotting his revenge.
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It gets worse, much worse:
http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/reading-bill-oreillys-old-novel-about-a-tv-newsman-who-murders-several-people-after-losing-his-job?intcid=popular
Achilleaze
(15,543 posts)ewwwww
stratospheric ick factor
kysrsoze
(6,022 posts)I'd love for my daughter to ask her mother if she has any more O'Reilly books for her, but it's probably best that she just continue not associating with her. This is the same mother who told her kids she would disown them if they turned out gay.
Sculpin Beauregard
(1,046 posts)He needs psychiatric help.
rhiannon55
(2,671 posts)Smarmy creepers like him and tRump are so easy to spot; how all their supporters can't see what they are is amazing to me. Another one is Sean Hannity; I can't believe he hasn't been caught harassing women. His looks and behaviors scream "sexual predator" to me.
rhiannon55
(2,671 posts)He is just that crazy and vindictive.