Megyn Kelly is often hailed as Fox News’s savior, protecting the network from generational obsolescence (however marginally) by occasionally pushing back on the uglier points of its ideology. A profile published by The New York Times Magazine today suggests she is also eligible for spousal sainthood. Her husband, Douglas Brunt, sold his internet security firm and is “pursuing his fantasy job of writing novels” — novels obviously inspired by Kelly and her career. Jim Rutenberg reports:
His latest, “The Means,” revolves around a young litigator, Samantha Davis, who decides she needs to change her life. She seeks a job at the hot cable-news network, UBS, and after a by-the-gut news executive is struck by her beauty and brains, gets her big chance. Under his gentle guidance — she does not require much — success follows. “America wants more,” her best friend says.
Readers looking for clues about Kelly’s true political leanings might find them in the book’s dramatic climax, in which Samantha uncovers a scandal that causes a Democratic president to lose his re-election bid. Evidence of right-wing bias? Not so fast: At the very end of the novel, it turns out that Samantha had been manipulated by a source, and that the story she broke was untrue. The Democrat was taken down unfairly. Samantha determines to clear his name. Now you wouldn’t know what to think.
It’s unclear what the plot means about Kelly’s politics, but the blurbs are bipartisan: Ken Langone, James Carville, Mike Huckabee, a Mondale campaign adviser. I could have used another 500 words on how she and Brunt decide what he’s allowed to write about — (sample quote from the novel: “she has kind of a big head and a little body … that translates well to TV”) — and what she gets to save for the late-career tell-all. But may we all live to read it!
