Donald Trump won the American presidency by telling a powerful story. Once upon a time, it went, in a land not-so-far away, there lived an honest and hard-working man. The man fell asleep one day, and when he woke, he found himself in a strange land. The story went on to tell of the man’s slow discovery that his home had been taken, his values trampled, his security washed away with the tides of change. As he’d slept, civil rights and new technologies had taken hold and manufacturing migrated. Foreigners immigrated and transformed the economic dynamic, the physical landscape and the colour palette of his great nation. The story continues with a lamp which emitted, when rubbed, a raving and flame-haired genie. I’ll give you back your home, the genie promised the man. All you have to do is set me free. The man rejoiced and set him free. The tale Trump spun wasn’t a popular one. Its appeal wasn’t wide, but it ran deep. It reached right into the throat of forgotten America and pulled from it xenophobia, isolationist simplification and a blind hope that this man, this genie, could resurrect a country they recognised. Four weeks into the new administration, as dissonance becomes the norm and every day a new battle, the writers around me have begun to question their purpose. Journalists, of course, are quite certain: their purpose is to report, question and not back down in their pursuit of honest and rational answers. Trump’s attempts to vilify the media only strengthen their resolve. But fiction writers? Before Lucky Boy came out, my two most recent stories were about dogs in space and Heathcliff Earnshaw on a date. Fiction writers are used to following their aesthetic whims, not news trends. What, then, is the role of fiction when it’s nonfiction that demands our incessant attention? When a Trump press conference is in itself an act of post-modern absurdity, what more can fiction offer? Ron Currie writes about the escapist value of fiction , and yes, there are times when escape is needed. There are times I can’t bring myself to listen to another calm radio voice detailing the slow rise of an authoritarian state. But what if I don’t want to escape? What if I want to stay and engage? What does fiction offer the contemporary reader and writer?