g.q. candidate why fiction and why the attention to physical appearance. oh that's interesting ok so it's funny i know most traders dream of always writing a novel i was not one of those in my case what happened is i was i was being asked about my second book and i couldn't stall any longer and i had a couple of nonfiction ideas that didn't pan out the way we hoped to i actually started researching one book and i'm still hoping one day i'll get to do the timing just didn't work this time around and so i said to my agent why only have really one other idea or possibility the only problem is is it's fiction i've never done fiction and she says well what the idea and i said it's about what happens to a group of friends when one of them decides to run for president and she says it's a great idea it's probably been done before but we've checked it hasn't been there's been plenty of excellent books as you know on campaigns primary colors probably being the most famous which i think is great but there have only been a book done specifically from the vantage point

g.q. candidate one of the things that i found which is about let me just say really quickly is about what happens to a group of friends when one of them decides to run for president by sheer coincidence the candidate governor luke hooper is handsome charismatic and black and he also happens to come from a multiracial family and his case his adoptive parents are jewish and the reason that that was interesting to me and important for me to to write about and why ended up talking about this issue of religion versus racial identity in terms of which is the greater obstacle on the campaign trail is because one of the things i was absolutely captivated by during the campaign and subsequent first term of president barack obama is that you have people that made my parents who never thought they'd live to see the day where we'd have an african-american president they lived through segregation in a let's roll the war stories that people like me are blessed to have not had to endure growing up and yet we finally got a viable african-american candidate for the presidency and lo and behold it turns ou