Sen. Barbara Boxer’s first novel, “A Time to Run” – written with San Francisco romance author Mary-Rose Hayes – is scheduled for November publication by constituent Chronicle Books. It’s about a woman who runs for the Senate after her rising political star husband dies mid-campaign. Since Boxer, D-Calif. – who has been working on the book for half a dozen years – did much of the writing while commuting between California and Washington and on the campaign trail last summer, we can anticipate realistic details from a candidate’s life. “But don’t expect a political thriller,” says Boxer’s editor, Jay Schaefer. He adds: “It’s the story of her world; it’s not her story.” Although a love interest enters the picture, don’t expect the romantic entanglements to be too raunchy – we’ll leave that to blogger Jessica Cutler in “Washingtonienne” – even though co-author Hayes has penned the seductive “The Winter Women,” “Paper Star” and “Amethyst.”
Life follows art
How’s this for timing? As the front story opens in Boxer’s book, the newly elected senator is handed explosive documents by a conservative reporter about a Supreme Court nominee. She faces a conflict about whether or not to go with the information from the reporter, who was her college lover. His dual role as reporter and friend gets entwined as the story continues.
Long view across the street
Deep thinkers gathered to hear Congressional Quarterly’s president Robert Merry present his new U.S. foreign policy book, “Sands of Empire,” at a Hay-Adams suite overlooking the White House on Monday night. Novelist Patricia O’Brien, introducing Merry at the hotel’s Select Authors Series, recalled first meeting him in 1984 while covering Sen. Gary Hart’s boat-wrecked presidential campaign. The two have been fast friends ever since.
A salon for today
Merry regaled the private assemblage of 25 about how his controversial book – described as a work about the “missionary zeal … and the hazards of global ambition” in American foreign policy – was rejected by a battery of publishers until Simon & Schuster saw the light and snatched up the rights. Well-known voices and faces at the brainy party included WAMU talk show hostess Diane Rehm, social powerhouse Selwa (Lucky) Roosevelt, political pundit Mark Shields, U.S. News & World Report columnist Gloria Borger, National Journal publisher John Fox Sullivan, Minister of the Japan Information and Cultural Center Hiroshi Furusawa, former White House wordsmith Aram Bakshian, and Kay Enokido, the hotel’s owner’s representative, who thought up the idea of hosting a series of intimate, conversational salons in an effort to rejuvenate the tradition established by John Hay and Henry Adams in the late 1800s.
ISO new tennis club
Now that popular senior tennis pro Allie Ritzenberg is retired from St. Albans Tennis Club after 43 years – although he’s playing winning doubles on the 85-plus circuit – Washington’s power players will be without a club next season. There has been lots of buzz over the net about where to swing next year. Some who don’t have access to the White House or Senate court are checking out the Edgemoor Club. Soft courts, please, the membership is aging! Tennis enthusiasts spotted at Allie’s recent retirement party on Court 1: Washington Posties Don Graham and Bo Jones, AEI’s Norm Ornstein, former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Walter Cutler, artist Dorothy Fall, geneticist Jill Shuger, doubles champion Betty Eisenstein, Jack Mower and Vivien Rowan.
Carter found himself with a pickle
The popular Texas Democrat J.J. Pickle passed on last week, but his legendary stories live on. One of his congressional colleagues, Elliott Levitas, D-Ga., recalls when Pickle asked him to be personally introduced to President-elect Jimmy Carter at a reception in the Cannon caucus room. Following the introduction, the Texas congressman shook hands with Carter and had a pickle in his hand. According to Levitas, “Jimmy looked shocked but took the pickle” (no word as to whether it was dill or sweet). Levitas recalls that Pickle told him later: “He’ll remember me.”
A shaggy Romanian
It was a real treat and so unusual in Washington to have a Romanian shepherd join guests at an elegant small pre-opera ball dinner at the Romanian residence. Ambassador Sorin Ducaru, 41, and his stylish young wife, Carmen, 31, certainly liven up the diplomatic corps. Not only do they have a 1-year-old daughter, but they also have Haiduc (which means “outlaw” in English), a shaggy sheep-herding dog, only one of three of this breed in the U.S. The ambassador takes great pride in personally grooming the affectionate, 120-pound canine. After being posted in D.C. for four and a half years, they will be missed when they move to Brussels in January.
Good news and bad
Just as we were about to congratulate Eleanor Mondale, 45, the former vice president’s daughter, on her third marriage, this one to rock star Chan Poling last week, we were saddened to learn that she began radiation and chemo treatment at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for a brain tumor. Mondale made news when she jogged with President Clinton and had high-profile TV gigs on both coasts. We wish her well.