Wonks gone wild!
FORMER KENNEDY SCHOOL dean Joseph Nye usually writes the kind of books discussed earnestly at policy forums and perused by index-skimming colleagues killing time at university bookstores. But no more! In his just-published novel, "The Power Game" ("a taut but sensitive political thriller" -- Tina Brown), Nye reaches out for a whole new audience. Here protagonist Peter Cutler, the proverbial "high State Department official," engages in some ill-advised personal diplomacy with the alluring Alexa Byrnes, herself a policy playa at the Department of Defense. Cutler is married, albeit not to Ms. Byrnes:
Alexa led me to the bed in the middle of the enormous room and pulled me down beside her. I kissed her breasts and ran my hand between her thighs. She gripped my shoulders tightly. Unlike the first time I made love to Alexa, when the ecstasy had been eroded by a sense of anxiety and uncertainty, I was sucked into this moment as quickly and completely as if I had placed my feet in quicksand. Memories from years ago blended with intense physical excitement in a driving, pounding torrent of passion.
In his new role as Robert Ludlum manqu, Nye joins a long list of policy wonks looking for readers beyond the Beltway and the faculty lounge. Former senators Gary Hart and William (The Poet) Cohen were trailblazers in the Serious-People-Try-Pulp-Fiction genre with their 1985 page-turner, "The Double Man."In this torrid excerpt, Sen. Tom Chandler enjoys a working dinner with his aide, Elaine Dunham, who is actually working for the CIA, but that's not important here:
After dinner, they went dancing at Charlie's Jazz. Elaine felt detached form herself, floating in Tom's arms. The hell with [CIA director] Trevor, she thought. And when Tom pulled her close to him, she knew that for tonight at least, it would be just plain Tom and Elaine. Later, back at her house, they made love. It was fierce, two rivers of energy rushing together, gloriously, powerfully. No words were needed.
Former assistant secretary of defense Richard Perle got in the swim with his 1992 novel, "Hard Line." Here protagonist Michael Waterman, who happens to be a top Defense Department official bent on saving democracy as we know it, engages in what George Costanza would call "make-up" sex with a woman who happens to be his wife:
By early evening they'd wandered back to the house hand in hand, reconciled by Waterman's pledges to move the family up a notch in the competition for time and attention and by Laura's forbearance in accepting that he meant what he promised. The truth was they loved each other; Michael's government service was a trial they were resolved to endure. . . . He and Laura shared the guest room out behind the house that night. The next day they left together for Aspen.
Less prudish in her fiction outings is Lynne Cheney, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Cheney, whose husband is now a high government official, is the author of "Sisters," a 1981 novel that features this now-notorious scene of heavy breathing:
The women who embraced in the wagon were Adam and Eve crossing a dark cathedral stage -- no, Eve and Eve, loving one another as they would not be able to once they ate of the fruit and knew themselves as they truly were.
New American Library's plans to reissue "Sisters" foundered earlier this year, when Cheney's power lawyer Robert Barnett objected, saying the book did not represent his client's "best work." Copies of the hard-to-find novel now command up to $500 on Internet auction sites, and it was just listed by BookFinder.com as the second most frequently requested out-of-print book in the country after "The New Soldier" (1971), edited by John Kerry.
