FICTION

THE CANDIDATE’S WIFE by Patricia O’Brien (Simon & Schuster: $21; 301 pp.) O’Brien was presidential candidate Michael Dukakis’ press secretary during the 1988 presidential campaign, and it shows: This story of Kate Goodspeed, the wife of a Kennedy-esque presidential candidate, is packed with the kind of detail that no second-band researcher could have come up with. The story has a nicely genuine ring to it, as Kate fights to uphold her husband Luke’s honor in the face of Machiavellian demands from his two campaign aids, the dumpy but cutthroat Marty Apple and the svelte and bloodless Claire Lorenzo. They both want their boy to do what he has to do to get elected, while his wife wants him to stay true to the ideals that got him into the race in the first place. Who will win his soul? Even though we assume, from Page 1, that love will conquer all, the path to victory is peppered with all sorts of surprises, not just about the candidate but also about members of his family. The author has made a nervy decision, and centered much of her story on the abortion-rights crisis in this country, personalizing it in a way that will make it difficult for readers to dismiss her overtly pro-choice position. In fact, the only irony here is that the electorate in this fictional United States is so even-headed in its response to the potential First Family’s frailties. Would this country elect the best man, even though he was guilty of adultery, and the husband and father of two women, one still a minor, who chose abortion? Highly unlikely--but between these hard covers, they do.