I didn't see this coming

In his articulate review of my recent novel Sodom, Gomorrah & Jones, Bob Hicks refers to "CJ’s increasingly hopeless and cynical view of the state of the nation," an accurate observation. Much of this is communicated with vignettes called "CJ Watches the News," sound bites from TV. I wanted to create the dark world that the media delivers to us all. But little did I expect myself to feel this: I didn't paint this world darkly enough! It's even more hopeless than CJ believes, or such is the message I've been getting from watching the news myself in the few weeks since the novel's publication. I didn't exaggerate matters for the novel. Quite the opposite! And in this regard, I find myself both shocked and depressed.