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BOOKS

STARR
and
STRIPE S

A new novel examines what happens when
the first Jewish president, Jonathan Starr,
is kidnapped on election night

p

resident-elect Jonathan
Starr lies drugged in a
laundry bag in the trunk of
the car.
Allen is at the wheel
with Riley by his side as the car speeds
along the California highway.
Suddenly, the driver notices a
flashing red light.
Patrolman Nyberg pulls the car
aside. Allen and Riley get nervous.
The patrolman asks for Allen's
driver's license The car's left tail light
is out, he says.
Allen breathes a sigh of relief
"Sorry, officer."
Then Nyberg walks to the back of
the can He shines his flashlight on the
trunk.
"Open it," he says.

S teven Kirsch set down his
pen. It was late at night.
He had just completed
an early scene in his book
Oath of Office.
It was time for a break. After all,
it isn't every day an author has to
decide what to do when a patrolman
stops a car with the president-elect in
the trunk.
Kirsch, a lawyer, never wanted to
be an author. Actually, he wanted to
be the first Jewish president of the
United States.
Oath of Office is Kirsch's first
novel, and its fans range from Sen.
Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota, who
called it "a real page-turner that will
compel your interest" to Ken Wain-
wright of Birmingham.
"It's a great book. It's really in-
teresting and has a different twist,"
Wainwright said.
Kirsch is outside counsel for
Allied Signal, for which Wainwright
works.

Steven Kirsch: 'From day one, I was convinced people would like the story.'

ELIZABETH KAPLAN

Staff Writer

Published in paperback last
September, Oath of Office is the story
of Jonathan Starr, who is abducted
one day after being elected president
of the United States.
In six weeks, Starr is to be con-
firmed by the electoral college.
But with the president-elect miss-
ing, the college faces a curious
situation.
They can back Starr and hope he
is found. They can elect the incum-
bent, who lost by a narrow margin.
They can vote for Starr's running
mate.
Or maybe the ambitious speaker
of the house will manage to muster
enough support to capture the na-
tion's highest office.

It's a fictional situation, but one
that could happen in real life, accor-
ding to Kirsch, who lives in Saint
Paul, Minn. -
Kirsch said the inspiration for
Oath of Office was the attempted
assassination in 1933 of president-
elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.
"I wondered, what would have
happened if FDR had been killed."
Kirsch said in a telephone interview.
"And the more I researched, the more
I found that there isn't an answer."
But Kirsch didn't stop with the
legal issues of the presidency. He also
tackled religious questions.
Jonathan Starr is Jewish.
Kirsch said he was intrigued by
the idea of whether a Jewish presi-

dent could be elected and how a
Jewish candidate would overcome
issues of anti-Semitism.
He also wondered how Arabs and
Israelis would react to an American
Jewish president, and considered
writing an article on the subject.
Then, Kirsch hit upon the idea of
combining the idea of a Jewish presi-
dent with what might happen if the
president-elect was kidnapped before
he could be approved by the electoral
college.
Kirsch began Oath of Office in
1980, writing longhand late at night,
and then dictating his material onto
casettes.
His first draft took up 22 casettes
and filled 861 pages.
Kirsch said he modeled characters
in the book after real people. The
charismatic Jonathan Starr is based
on John Kennedy, while his opponent,
Arthur Sutherland, the incumbent, is
like "a real sharp Gerald Ford,"
Kirsch said. "He's basically a humane
and decent man:'
The author admitted that, during
the long haul of writing Oath of Of-
fice, the characters occasionally
underwent dramatic transformations.
"Some of the people who were
short and fat at the beginning were
thin and tall at the end," Kirsch said.
So was the novel itself.
Kirsch said he realized his
original 861 pages were "not suitable
for other eyes," and he edited it down
200 pages. In addition, legal and con-
stitutional experts doublechecked the
facts.
In 1982, Kirsch sent his novel to
an agent, and received a less than en-
thusiastic response. He was disap-
pointed, yet not discouraged.
Kirsch then hired an editor to
work on the book.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

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