New Novels Echo Drumbeat Of Daily News

As the president of the United States begins a tough re-election campaign, he is beset by rumors of philandering. Meanwhile, his outspoken wife has growing political problems - and tangled financial secrets - of her own.

When the primary season heats up, rival candidates sling mud, and the Secret Service has its hands full protecting all of them from assassins’ bullets. The nation’s ugly mood is further inflamed by outbreaks of domestic terrorism in the heartland, not to mention the pyrotechnics of radio talk show hosts.

Sound familiar? All these news items were culled from the front pages … of forthcoming novels.

In a world saturated with media information, book publishing has become just one more mirror in which we see ourselves, and the days when writers tried to distance themselves from headlines are long gone. This year, the big books of winter and spring will echo the drumbeat of daily news more than ever, many of them blurring the line between fact and fiction.

The topics range from politics and criminal justice to glimpses of African-American life, white suburban malaise and Hollywood flimflam. Writers are chronicling the lives of single fathers and the struggles of women with breast cancer in novels as well as memoirs, and you’re just as likely to pick up a techno-thriller about the Persian Gulf war as a history of Patriot missiles.

In one sense, 1996 should be like any other year in the book biz: Brand-name authors are likely to dominate the bestseller lists, with new titles from John Grisham, Danielle Steel and Mary Higgins Clark. Nonfiction books by Bob Woodward and former President Bush will also vie for top billing, along with works by Louise Erdrich, Sam Shepard, Cynthia Ozick, Mary Gordon, Calvin Trillin, Nicholson Baker, Ivan Doig, John Kenneth Galbraith and Ian Frazier.

Yet a random sampling of catalogs shows a new trend of current events dominating books. Today, novelists and pundits tackle similar themes - and who’s to say whether an attack on racism by a black essayist is any more or less revealing than the fictional tale of a pregnant teenager from Harlem?

“Fiction and nonfiction switch roles quite a bit in the book world,” says Ivan Held, publicity director for Random House. “Sometimes they merge.”

A good example is “Primary Colors” (Random House), an anonymously penned novel that is one of the more eagerly awaited political thrillers of 1996. Blessed with strong early reviews, it’s the fictional account of a U.S. president, very much like Bill Clinton, with a wife very much like Hillary Rodham Clinton, facing a series of obstacles very much like Clinton faced in 1992.

Yet how fictional is the book, asks Publishers Weekly, given rampant speculation that the author is “someone highly placed in Washington, possibly even within the Clinton administration?” How fanciful is the story, the weekly adds, given the writer’s “intimate knowledge” of Washington culture?

Readers may pose similar questions about “The Anniversary” by Rachel Canon (Random House), a bracing what-if tale about the assassination of the first woman president. “Exclusive” by Sandra Brown (Warner Books) portrays a young first couple’s private lives with scorching detail and telling nuance.

“Absolute Power” by David Baldacci (Warner Books) conjures what would happen if the president of the United States brutalized a woman during rough sex and then tried to cover up the crime. In “Days of Drums” by Philip Shelby (Simon & Schuster), a U.S. senator is murdered and a president who just happens to be from Arkansas may be next on the hit list. “The Campaign” by Marilyn Quayle and Nancy Tucker Northcott (HarperCollins) tells of a charismatic black conservative senator from Georgia who is set up to take the rap in a murder case by … who else? . . . the president of the United States.

If all this seems confusing, there are plenty of nonfiction books about politics heading your way this spring. Presidential campaigns always trigger an avalanche of fact-based titles, and this year should be no different.

“Madhouse” by Jeffrey Birnbaum (Times Books) chronicles the initial idealism and subsequent burnout of six Clinton aides in Washington, D.C. Historian Douglas Brinkley weighs in with “Jimmy Carter” (Random House), a painstakingly researched analysis of the former president.

In “The System” (Little, Brown & Co.), veteran correspondents Haynes Johnson and David Broder detail the breakdown of the U.S. political process; Harold Myerson, a Los Angeles author, chronicles the erosion of unions and working-class political solidarity in “The Disorganization of America” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).

Two titles top the list of 1996 political books: In “American Foreign Policy,” Bush and former national security chief Brent Scowcroft discuss the outbreak of the Persian Gulf War, the end of the Cold War and other upheavals during their Washington years. Back on the home front, ace reporter Woodward delivers “The Race,” an inside account of the 1996 campaign before the election actually takes place.