Foundling Fathers
by Meg Elison

Reviewed by Galen Strickland
Posted October 26, 2026

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Another short book for which my comments will be brief, and another example of how I try my best to avoid too much information about books ahead of time. What I thought this would be about was different than the reality. I was sure it would be a satire, with some of the United States' Founding Fathers experiencing anacrhonistic elements. That is the case, but not in the way I expected. For instance, the first sentence tells us that…

"It took Benjamin Franklin twenty-seven minutes and fourteen seconds to discover there was pornography on the internet."

I'm not sure if that was later when he had access to a computer, or if it was during his first explorations of the iPhone he found on the windowsill in his favorite privy. We later learn someone had left the phone there on purpose, and that person was the woman Franklin thought was his mother. She was the one who birthed him, but she was not his biological mother, nor was she the true mother of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or John Adams, even though they all thought she was, and they all also thought they were brothers. Another thing they thought was that the year was 1750, but they were wrong about that too.

I recommend the book but would rather not say much more. I'm sure if you are not averse to spoilers you can find them elsewhere, or maybe my hints will be enough. In her afterword, Elison says she got the idea when someone was telling her about the Warhammer table top game. Visualizing historical characters in a different setting might help us better understand both the past, present, and future. I am sure a character in the book is based on a current oligarch, and it wouldn't surprise me if he has had the idea the Antediluvians did in this book. I'll close with something else Elison wrote in her afterword:

"…the benefit from the leadership of the past is mostly a fiction to us. Every time I hear someone wishing for some previous time when things were better, I lose both respect and trust for the person saying it. For the most part, they're idealizing a time before they understood the world well enough to fear it. For the worst part, they're wishing for a time when the brand of oppression they like best was more accepted."

 

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