American Notes Books

Unlike most fledgling suspense novelists, they whitewashed the sex scenes and played up the humdrum life at the office. But these are no ordinary authors, and the lack of a certain spice has not hurt the book's burgeoning sales. Available in bookstores since April, The Double Man, by Democratic Senator Gary Hart of Colorado and Republican Senator William Cohen of Maine, has been selected as a Book-of-the-Month Club alternate, has hit the Washington Post best-seller list, seems headed for best-seller ranks elsewhere and may even reach the silver screen. The story, which they jointly hatched five years ago during a coffee break while waiting out an all-night filibuster, concerns Thomas Chandler, an upstanding Connecticut Senator with presidential aspirations who gets caught up in a Soviet terrorist plot as well as in the net of a beautiful female aide. Cohen and Hart, anxious about the book's reception, have sent copies of the thriller to every Senator; most of them relish the depiction of the Senate, and some find certain aspects very familiar. Barry Goldwater told Cohen, "You call it fiction? I don't. I saw a little bit of me in there." For the two collaborators, life may indeed be imitating art. Hart confesses that sometimes before a vote in the Senate, Cohen will say to him, "What would Chandler do about this?"