American Adulterer: A Novel

'The subject is American citizen holding high elected office, married and father to a young family...'

From its opening line, American Adulterer explores the life of a habitual womaniser in hypnotically clinical prose. The subject regards his high libido as physiologically normal;if he goes without a woman for three days, he suffers withdrawal symptoms. Yet this particular philanderer is in no position to live with bohemian abandon. He must be circumspect in his choice of partners and employ careful calculation in their seduction. He must go to extraordinary lengths to conceal his affairs from his wife and his political rivals - and with good reason, since he is the 35th President of the United States, John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

Jed Mercurio shows us Kennedy's affairs with Marilyn Monroe, mob moll Judith Campbell, libertine Mary Meyer, and his flings with numerous White House staff, including his tryst with a nineteen-year-old intern whose unofficial role was to provide sexual release for the man who was Leader of the Free world during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Yet he never demonises his subject, instead offering a sympathetic and wholly credible portrait of a virtuous man in the grip of an uncontrollable vice. Each affair propels President Kennedy into increasingly murky waters. He fears losing the wife and children to whom he's devoted, and the office to which he's dedicated. And despite being crippled by back pain, and suffering from a range of other debilitating ailments, Kennedy is a highly effective Commander-in-Chief, with an idealistic vision of America.

Through its study of an important historical figure, this remarkable, ground-breaking novel poses controversial questions about society's evolving fixation on the private lives of public officials and, ultimately ignites a polemic on monogamy, marriage and traditional family values.

'Brilliant...Mercurio finds a truth in JFK through fiction' Metro

Like any womanizer, the subject of this novel must go to extraordinary lengths to hide his affairs from his wife and colleagues. But this is no ordinary adulterer - he is John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. Yet he is also a virtuous man enslaved by an uncontrollable vice. Startlingly empathetic, darkly witty and deft, American Adulterer takes inspiration from the tantalizing details surrounding President Kennedy's sex life and medical secrets to weave a provocatively intimate portrait of the man's affairs, illness, courage and idealism - and in Jack's love for his wife, recreates one of history's most fascinatingly enigmatic marriages.

'Compelling. Glacially elegant prose...depicts a man who, for all his power, remains imprisoned by desire' Financial Times

'The President's wit, courtesy, peacemaking vision and cool judgement are all here, vividly re-created, as well as courage in the face of near disabling infirmity and pain....gripping and thoughtful' Sunday Times

'The Cuban Missile Crisis is brilliantly, claustrophobically handled, and the treatment of the president's tragically premature son so riveted me that I found my head buried in the book as I walked down the street and bumped into things' Independent