Arts

Book Notes

By Mary B. W. Tabor
Published: June 14, 1995

Mystery Author

In one of its more bizarre publishing adventures, Random House has paid a six-figure advance for a novel by an unidentified author that offers, among other things, what appears to be a veiled account of Bill Clinton's 1992 Presidential campaign.

The details of the roman a clef, as well as the author's identity, are being closely guarded by all involved. In fact, even Harry Evans, Random House's publisher, insists that he does not know the author's name.

"This book is so authentic it could have been written by Clinton himself," Mr. Evans said. "It's a really vivid, amusing, completely compelling account" of the drama, suspense and shenanigans of American political life, he said.

Mr. Evans said he bought the book two months ago from Kathy Robbins, a literary agent, who insisted that the author remain anonymous. Mr. Evans agreed, provided that he is told before the book is published in February 1996.

Will there be a pen name? "No, no," he said. "No pen names. That would be deceitful. We don't want to deceive anybody. It will just say 'Anonymous.' "

When asked if the anonymity compromises his control over the book, Mr. Evans said, "I do care to know about the author, but this isn't the Unabomber; this is a novel."

No one need tell Random House, however, that the book's success and the extent to which it stirs up Washington will most likely hinge on the credibility of its author.

Publishing industry insiders said they believed that the person was a prominent nonfiction writer trying the novel form for the first time. Three suspects were Robbins clients who covered the campaign: Michael Kelly and Sidney Blumenthal, who write for The New Yorker, and Joe Klein, a columnist for Newsweek. All three denied authorship yesterday. There was also speculation that the author was someone active in the Clinton campaign.

Even the book's editor, Daniel Menaker, who is among a handful of editors with access to the manuscript, insists he is in the dark. Editing will be done by mail.

"I know it sounds like a publishers' buzz ploy," Mr. Menaker said. (That's publishese for an attempt to generate interest in a book.) "But it isn't," he added. "All I know is that the author doesn't want his or her identity to interfere with the reception of the book."

On its contents, he and others were even sketchier.

"It's a novel about modern American politics; that's all I'll say," Mr. Menaker said.

Ms. Robbins declined to comment. Presidential Reading

One sure window into a person's soul is his reading list. Often, it is the books read in youth that influence later years.

Take, for example, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. His favorite books as a child were "Boys of 1812" and "Sailor Boys of '61," by James Russell Soley, and "Plain Tales From the Hills," by Rudyard Kipling, stories that mixed history, adventure and the sea, passions he held throughout his life and career.

As a youth, Dwight D. Eisenhower was obsessed with military history and the classics, particularly Thucydides and Homer. His mother, exasperated that Little Ike was ignoring his other studies, locked the classics in the closet. But the general-to-be found a key, said Stephen E. Ambrose, an Eisenhower biographer.

The young Harry S. Truman was famous for his love of the Bible, Mark Twain's books, George Eliot's "Silas Marner" and Edward Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire."

And Bill Clinton loved John Fitzgerald Kennedy's "Profiles in Courage."
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