ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 1, 1996 TAG: 9602010050
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: MARC FISHER AND LINTON WEEKS THE WASHINGTON POST
SUSPECTS ARE MANY, but nobody has discovered the secret - and now wealthy - tattler.
The anonymous author of ``Primary Colors'' - the fictional treatment of the 1992 Clinton campaign that has soared atop bestseller lists and stymied political Washington's efforts to divine its creator - is negotiating for a million-dollar paperback contract and a big-money deal for a second book, according to an authoritative New York publishing source.
One day after President Clinton challenged reporters to find out who wrote the novel that portrays him with what one aide called ``intense ambivalence,'' a parade of suspected authors and obsessed insiders took to the TV chat shows and kept phone lines buzzing as they traded speculation and reached desperately for the thinnest evidence.
A well-reviewed but - if not for the mystery over its authorship - otherwise unremarkable novel has, by dint of its uncanny verisimilitude and a brilliant marketing ploy, turned into a publicist's dream. Even the president, who called the mystery ``the only secret I've seen kept in Washington in three years,'' announced he plans to read it.
Only the author and the book's agent, Kathy Robbins, know the name, publishing sources say. At Random House the book's editor, Daniel Menaker, and Publisher Harold Evans are in the dark, contractually prohibited even from speculating about the writer's identity, said Evans, who swore ``on my mother's soul'' that he does not know.
The book, which depicts scenes from the Clinton campaign so precisely that White House officials say the author had to have been present at several events witnessed only by close campaign aides, first came to the publisher's attention last April, the publishing source said.
Robbins, a top New York agent, brought about 50,000 words of the book to a breakfast with Evans. From the beginning, the agent insisted on anonymity for her client, saying she would take the book elsewhere if Random House did not agree to a contract with no one listed as author.
Menaker edited the book by mail.
The contract was in the $200,000 range, the source said. Robbins delivered each portion of the novel in a plain brown envelope.
Although the publishers cannot speculate publicly about the author, those involved in the process are now said to be convinced that the writer is a woman. The novel is narrated by Henry Burton, a black political operative modeled after Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos.
The book's first printing of 62,000 - a large figure for a Washington novel - sold briskly last month. As of Wednesday, said Ivan Held, a spokesman for Random House, the company had shipped 177,000 copies and the book was in its sixth printing. The novel is No. 2 on this week's Wall Street Journal bestseller list and will appear as No. 7 on Sunday's New York Times fiction list, Held said. It will premiere Sunday at the top of the Washington Post best-selling fiction list.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. ``Primary Colors,'' a fictional treatment of theby CNB1992 Clinton campaign, is on several bestseller lists.