Space Relations

The author of political nonfiction Hiding in Plain Sight (2020) and The View from the Flyover Country (2018) is tweeting thoughts about Donald Barr's Space Relations (1973).

I'm reading the scifi book Bill Barr's dad wrote and I can't decide my favorite line of dialogue; really torn between "I *enjoy* being a slaveowner" and "Women *are* at a disadvantage when it comes to necrophilia!"

Also the mineral the slaves are mining is called "Weinsteinite"

"To me, pederasty seems utterly lacking in aesthetic appeal."

Well that's one way to look at it, Bill Barr's dad!

Now that I'm looking, I see that Space Relations and Barr's 1981 novel Planet in Arms has been repeatedly mentioned in tweets, TV shows, and news articles since (the real) Jeffrey Epstein's death in legal custody, when William "Bill" Barr was US Attorney General.

Before today, I didn't know the science fiction novels existed.

US politicians often enough associated with Thriller or Romance genre novels, but this is the first time that I can think of Sci-fi connection, even if it's somewhat less direct than usual. (Donald Barr was a school teacher, not himself in federal political service, is my understanding.)

Huh. You learn something every day!

"Women *are* at a disadvantage when it comes to necrophilia!"

Necron

Fun Fact: Donald Barr was the schoolmaster who gave Epstein his start in life....

>4 AsYouKnow_Bob:

You made that up! I mean, it's scary believable, but proof?

I've looked up the Donald Barr and Jeffrey Epstein connection. A very brief summary:

Headmaster Barr might have hired 20-year-old Epstein to teach at Dalton School, a college prep school in New York. Barr resigned from his position three months before Epstein started teaching.

My primary source: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/the-epstein-barr-problem-of-new-york-citys-...
(Because the Law & Crime site is unfamiliar to me, I also looked up its reputation at https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/law-newz/).

Space Relations was published in the previous year.

But in the wake of Epstein’s death, conspiratorial corners of the internet have noticed that the violent depictions in Space Relations somewhat echo his crimes and dark obsessions. A few eBay sellers have capitalized on this, going so far as to explicitly advertise Epstein in their product descriptions for the book.

Source: https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/qvgpm3/epstein-truthers-are-obsessed-with-a-s...

Harvey Weinstein is roughly Epstein's age and also a New Yorker. It's unclear if Barr knew the Weinstein family when he wrote about Weinsteinite.

>3 LolaWalser: Haha. That character flipped her disadvantage.

>2 paradoxosalpha:, yes, same!

>5 paradoxosalpha:

Well, when Epstein died, I heard it asserted as fact (e.g., it's mentioned deep in this Vanity Fair story on Wm. Barr:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/10/the-untold-tale-of-young-william-barr ); and Dalton students recall making "Epstein-Barr" jokes at the time; but now I'm seeing it debunked.
(Donald Barr left in June, Epstein started teaching in September. So it's possible that Barr hired him for the fall...)

The last episode of this season's The Good Fight investigates Epstein's suicide and references almost all this material. The legal show started the season with a fantasy episode showing Hillary Clinton winning the election and ended with this Citizen Kane inspired mystery.The show does exaggerate reality.

Are we visiting the sins of the father onto the son? Didn't he commit enough of his own?

>10 SFF1928-1973: I doubt anyone is crediting William Barr as the author of the Barr novels.