In a re-enactment of the 1963 Dallas motorcade for a reality TV show, one JFK lookalike is killed and another injured. The unhinged widow and the wounded survivor, both disguised in black burqahs, drive from Dallas to Detroit in a gold SUV to hear a murderer’s confession. Part mystery, part road-movie, this novel offers a wholly original and blackly funny switchback ride fuelled by an unholy mix of celebrity, democracy and reality TV.

"Elise Valmorbida’s strange and timely novel is set at an unspecified point in the near future. America is gripped by a television show that pits two JFK impersonators against each other in a national election... Valmorbida seems most concerned to show har far people will go in a bid to run away from themselves, and how skilfully this desire is courted by corporations. The atmosphere of round-the-clock surveillance, mistrust and excitement that she conveys is like a negative rewriting of the the recent US elections. That Barack Obama has been compared to JFK helps The TV President seem even more pertinent... luridly entertaining fiction."
Times Literary Supplement

Elise Valmorbida runs a communications agency and teaches creative writing at Central St Martin’s in London. Her published works include Matilde Waltzing (1997), The Book of Happy Endings (2007) and The Winding Stick (Two Ravens, 2009). She was producer of the film Saxon and wrote the introduction to the screenplay by Greg Loftin, published by CBe.