Kerry's ex-girlfriend relives their affair in graphic novel

[SharpLS-96]

I just might purchase this novel for the laughs!

Kerry's ex-girlfriend relives their affair in graphic novel
By Philip Sherwell in Washington
(Filed: 14/11/2004)

If John Kerry came across as stiff and awkward during his bid for the White House, then a very different picture of him is emerging - as a silver-tongued womaniser - in a book to go on sale this month.

Lee Roystone, a former girlfriend of Mr Kerry, has written a semi-autobiographical novel in which her fictional alter ego, Nikki Matthews, has an on-off affair with a dashing Massachusetts senator - a Democrat whom she says is modelled on Mr Kerry.

Nikki, a Harvard graduate, describes her politician lover as a "caveman" in the bedroom who would whisper sweet nothings to her in French - a language Mr Kerry speaks fluently. He also has a home on Beacon Hill, Boston, as does Mr Kerry.

In another part of Hedge Fund Mistress, Nikki tells a friend about a particularly wild encounter over dinner with her political paramour, Sen Jim Hoyt. "We were sitting at one end of the long dining room table and suddenly we were feeding each other and kissing, and all over each other, and undressing each other and plates were falling on the floor, food was everywhere, you know, our usual combustible frenzy, and then he carried me to the bedroom," she writes. Asked by her friend what happened next, Nikki says: "We made mad, passionate love and he immediately fell asleep." The unfortunate Nikki, however, almost dies as the senator lies snoring while she goes into anaphylactic shock from eating shellfish.

Miss Roystone recently caused a stir when she unveiled a website of memorabilia dating from her relationship with Mr Kerry 14 years ago.

She finished the book several months ago, but delayed publication until after the election. Miss Roystone feared jeopardising the ambitions of a man whom she admits that she is still besotted with, although he broke her heart.

She says that she had a 20-month affair with Mr Kerry, who was single at the time after his divorce from his first wife, Julia Thorne. He started to see Teresa Heinz, the widowed ketchup and baked beans heiress, in 1992 and they married in 1995.

The Telegraph is the first newspaper to see the final draft of the book which Miss Roystone is bringing out in a self-publishing deal later this month. Even after the election, Hedge Fund Mistress promises to embarrass Mr Kerry.

Although her Mills and Boon writing style will not win rave reviews, readers are treated to an "insider" account of the senator's bachelor days. Nikki describes the first time she met Sen Hoyt at a Democratic fund-raiser. "His dark eyes - were they green or brown or hazel? - skittered around until they came to rest on her high black heels. His gaze moved slowly up the length of her body until they met her eyes. Nikki felt an electric jolt." Elsewhere, she describes massaging his back as he discusses the first Gulf war on the telephone. Nikki tells her friend: "You don't interrupt a man with useless chatter when he's mulling over world events."

Their romance, however, was not to last. Humiliated several times as the senator attends functions with other women, Nikki almost stops eating and eventually becomes seriously ill. "The events in the chapter are all true," said Miss Roystone, 42, last week. "I don't think there's anything derogatory or pornographic there, but I have told the story as it was. I'd thought of sending him a copy, but perhaps I'll let him go out and buy it in a bookstore. He's pretty thick-skinned and I doubt this will puncture that.

"I was young and smitten back then, and he was single and attractive. There were a lot of women in his life at that time. I still think very highly of him, but I sometimes wonder if he thinks about those little women now, about what happened to them."

The book's title refers to Nikki's subsequent affairs with two billionaires - a pharmaceutical heir and a hedge fund supremo. The tale of infidelity and murder is largely played out in the affluent town of Greenwich, Connecticut, where Miss Roystone lives.

It culminates when Sen Hoyt runs for president several years after his fling with Nikki but loses, after a closely-fought campaign.

Mr Kerry and his campaign staff made no comment about Miss Roystone's claims.

**********
After reading that it reminds me of this story!

Stop behaving as if you are a Frenchman if you want to win, says Kerry's (French) adviser
By Julian Coman in Washington and Charles Laurence
(Filed: 28/03/2004)

He has already attempted one reinvention: as outdoorsy Marlboro Man rather than buttoned-up Boston Brahmin. Yet John Kerry, the Democrats' challenger to George W Bush, has been warned by a French-born adviser that his style on the stump is still too "French" to win the presidential election.

Clotaire Rapaille, a psychologist and business consultant, has concluded that Mr Kerry, a noted francophile and fluent French speaker, would go down better in Paris than the Mid West because his style is too highbrow. In short, he needs a radical makeover.

"My expertise is in breaking the unconscious code in every culture, and you must do that to understand the presidency," he told the Telegraph last night.

"Kerry's trouble is that he is simply not the common man. In America you have to be the common man, be able to make people think you are the common man. Bush and Clinton - they both have the music, the simple talk, they can drink out of the bottle.

"Forget the French connection. Americans feel betrayed by the French [because of French opposition to the war on Iraq]. He must forget that he can speak French, that he knows France, and Switzerland. Ignore the French."

Mr Rapaille's devastating decoding of Mr Kerry will come as a blow for aides who sought help after the Republicans depicted their candidate - despite his Vietnam war service - as a woolly intellectual, given to over-analysing important issues.

"A French writer living in America," as one Democrat official described Mr Rapaille last week. "Who better to advise on the dangers of being seen as too intellectual?"

In advertisements attacking Mr Kerry, the Bush camp has cited a list of "flip-flop" issues on which the Massachusetts senator has either changed his mind or made long, ambiguous statements. He has been repeatedly criticised for adopting contradictory positions on issues such as funding the Iraq war.

Last night, Mr Rapaille - the author of a forthcoming book, Archetypes of the Presidency, warmed to his theme. "The French are thinkers - 'I think therefore I am'. Americans want somebody that is going to take action," he said in heavily-accented English. "All this association of Kerry with thinking too much and nuance and five-sentence answers is off-code.

"American culture is an adolescent culture. That is why Americans do not know about sex, but are crazy about violence. Clinton was the archetypal presidential candidate - he always had the girl under the table, was always in trouble, was always news. He was adolescent."

The Florida-based consultant further recommended that Mr Kerry cut down on holidays - the candidate has recently been snowboarding in Idaho - give punchy answers, and change the way he dresses.

"Never again go on vacation," Mr Rapaille said. "If you want to be the captain of the ship, you do not go on vacation. Americans look for the man of action with the 24/7 mindset.

"Give simple answers to questions - one word or two. Never go into both sides of an argument." He also recommended that Mr Kerry work on his all-American outdoor image, given President Bush's cultivation of a macho Texas persona and his emphasis on leading a "wartime" administration.

"Senator Kerry - dress like you are going into a bar in Kansas to drink from the bottle! Go to K-mart, buy jeans and cowboy boots and cheap shirts. Taking off your pin-stripe jacket to expose your dress shirt does not do it. Americans have no idea how to dress."

Turning himself into Marlboro Man is hardly likely to have appealed to Mr Kerry. With a 30-year career in Congress behind him, his reputation is as a sophisticated Washington political player, not a bruiser.

Nonetheless, there are signs that the Kerry team is taking Mr Rapaille's advice on board. Next month, to the dismay of some Democrats, he is expected to take part in a turkey shoot in West Virginia - part of an extended programme of outdoor activities between now and November.

A windsurfing trip is in the offing this summer, a follow-up to the snowboarding. During the primary campaign in New Hampshire, Mr Kerry also played a starring role in a pre-arranged ice-hockey match. Details of the candidate's new populist persona can be found on the internet, where he recently signed up to the popular Friendster networking site. Friendster has 5.5 million people registered, with an average age of 27. All are required to submit a profile; Mr Rapaille would doubtless approve of Sen Kerry's pen-portrait, accompanied by a windsurfing photograph.

His favourite films, as listed, are the boorish Animal House, The Blues Brothers and Old School. His robust interests include "hunting, motorcycles and offering a REAL DEAL to America" and his favourite singer is the down-to-earth rock star Bruce Springsteen, whose biggest hit was Born in the USA. Jean-Paul Sartre and Edith Piaf, significantly, do not feature.

[mmarshall]

I'm not sure this is really news. Half of the people in Congress....on BOTH sides of the aisle....have probably had affairs of one kind or another....whether the affairs involved marriage or not. Some even have closet homosexual boy and girl friends. One...Barney Frank....is an open homosexual.

[Captain Bone]

Originally posted by mmarshall
I'm not sure this is really news. Half of the people in Congress....on BOTH sides of the aisle....have probably had affairs of one kind or another....whether the affairs involved marriage or not. Some even have closet homosexual boy and girl friends. One...Barney Frank....is an open homosexual.

Yeah, and include Former Governor Jim McGreevey as a bisexual also. (Good old Jersey)

-Anthony

[Vegassc400]

She sounds like a jilted ex who's looking for revenge and publicity. Sounds like she needs to get a life and quit going on about something that happened more than 10 years ago.

[mmarshall]

Originally posted by Vegassc400
She sounds like a jilted ex who's looking for revenge and publicity. Sounds like she needs to get a life and quit going on about something that happened more than 10 years ago.

She will probably write a book just like everyone else in these soap-opera cases to FINANCE that life.