Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 9, 1991 TAG: 9104090044
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"I sold 50 since I got them in a half-hour ago, and I haven't even had time to take them out of the box," said Perry Haberman, owner of the Madison Avenue Bookshop in New York City.
C.C. McClure, store manager at the Downtown Book and Toy in Jefferson City, Mo., said she was fending off calls for Kitty Kelley's "Nancy Reagan, the Unauthorized Biography," while waiting for a shipment.
"It doesn't necessarily mean everyone wants to buy it, but they all want to look at it for sure," she said.
"Just about every other call is for Nancy Reagan," said Carol Allin, owner of Capitol Bookstore in Little Rock, Ark. "I'm afraid I didn't order enough. . . . I didn't expect this kind of turnout."
Ronald Reagan called the book "patently untrue" in a statement released by his office in Los Angeles. He denied allegations of marijuana use and marital infidelity.
"I have an abiding faith that the American people will judge this book for what it really is: sensationalism whose sole purpose is enriching its author and publisher," he said. "Neither I nor my wife, Nancy, intend to have any further comment on this matter."
Sinatra spokeswoman Susan Reynolds said, "We are not going to dignify this type of writing with a formal response."
At a Barnes & Noble store in mid-Manhattan, 300 copies of Kelley's book arrived in early afternoon; 200 were gone within a few hours. The book sells for $24.95.
"I've never seen anything like it in my publishing career," said Jack McKeown, vice president of Simon & Schuster. "Since 9 a.m., we have already picked up 100,000 copy reorders."
That's in addition to the 600,000 copies Simon & Schuster already had in or en route to book stores around the country.
According to the book, Nancy Reagan started an affair with Sinatra while Ronald Reagan was governor of California, and she and Sinatra continued meeting in the White House. It also says she once smoked marijuana with her husband while he was governor, abused her children and lied about her background.
"There's a new focus on ethics, a revisionist approach to the '80s. I think the book is entering the culture as a must-read," McKeown said. But nothing quite so intellectual crossed the lips of those rushing to buy.
"My wife hates Nancy Reagan with a passion and this is full of all the things she would like to hear about her," said I. Philip Sipser, who was part of a small crowd around the Barnes & Noble display in New York City.
Yvette Curran said she was eager to read about "this Miss Goody Two-Shoes with the adoring gaze. And she's so cheap, you can die. Can't she spring for $20 for her own grandson?"
She was referring to Kelley's anecdote that Nancy Reagan once sent her grandson Cameron a birthday present that turned out to be a teddy bear he had left at the White House some months earlier.
by CNB