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N.S. Vageesh

Chennai, June 5 Facts, they say, are often stranger than fiction. But sometimes fiction can be prescient.

And although considered improbable, the events that are written as fiction actually unfold in some form or the other – after a gap of time.

Barack Obama’s victory in the US Democratic Party nomination race to now become the first black presidential candidate is one such epochal event.

Beating overwhelming odds, including prejudices about race, colour, experience, besides a strong contender, Obama has come quite far.

To understand just how far – and why this is stranger than fiction – you need to read

The Man, by that master story-teller, Irving Wallace. The novel was about the first black president of the US, written in the early 60s and published in 1964. He becomes President, though not through an election.

The author, even then, preferred not to stretch credibility and the readers’ imagination too far.

The protagonist, Douglass Dilman, a black senator, comes into the Oval Office by a freak accident.

The incumbent president dies in a mishap overseas along with the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The Vice-President had expired a little before that. According to the line of succession laid down in the US Constitution, the next in line when there was a vacancy in the Presidency was the President Pro Tempore of the US Senate – who happens to be Douglas Dilman!

A shocked Dilman takes over even as a shocked nation and shaken colleagues watch in fascinated horror.

How he copes with the racial prejudice of the times on both sides, the state of ferment, the humiliations and taunts and overcomes various challenges is the subject of the rest of this best-selling novel.

Irving Wallace had originally worked on two other plot outlines dealing with blacks, but found them unsatisfactory. While poring over newspapers dealing with the Civil Rights issues (it was peaking then), he had a sudden inspiration – What if the country had a black president? How would the country react?

To research the subject thoroughly, he got permission to visit and study the President’s life in the White House. President John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Kennedy gave him almost unrestricted access, with the knowledge that he would be using this for background material.

Speaking nearly 44 years ago, shortly after the book came into print, Irving Wallace said, “Such a novel could even contribute to the equality revolution now in progress in our country. I hope I have succeeded.

“When my wife was reading the manuscript she said, ‘I’ve forgotten that the President is black’. If other readers feel the same way, I’ll have achieved some of my purpose.”

So, happy reading! And let’s hope that Obama gets a fair chance from the US voters. Irving Wallace, who died in 1990, would be happy.

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