A new book “The President’s Therapist” by Kent resident John Wareham is described as a political thriller detailing George W. Bush’s relapse and treatment for alcoholism. Interesting concept — and even more so that it comes out just as Bush finishes his final days at the White House. One publisher, who declined to take on the book, described the topic as “too combustible.”

“Truth may be stranger than fiction but the lines are blurred in The President’s Therapist,” reads the press release for this compact 231-page hardcover novel from Welcome Rain Publishers in New York, which clearly wasn’t concerned with the possibly flammable nature of the words.

Wareham has written op-eds for The New York Times and Financial Times. His books include “Secrets of a Corporate Headhunter” and “How to Break Out of Prison” as well as the novel “Chancey On Top.” In addition, he is founder and president of The Eagles Foundation, a nonprofit organization that seeks to teach incarcerated prisons how to be leaders of their own lives.

In “The President’s Therapist”, Wareham portrays the outgoing president as the lead character and major patient of Dr. Mark Alter, a psychotherapist who also engages in marriage counseling with First Lady Laura Bush. We’ve all seen those tabloid magazines at supermarket check-outs, I assume.

Well, it sounds interesting and certainly thought-provoking. The topic and Wareham’s always clever writing suggested many questions to me and I’m pleased to say he generously responded to my inquiry. What follows is a question-and-answer interview we recently engaged in through email. If you’d like to know more about the book, go to www.washingtonwatch.com or about Wareham, check out his Web site

Q: How and when did you get the idea for this book?

A: “When W fell off his couch, blackening his eye, it seemed probable to me that he was drinking again. The National Enquirer subsequently ran a story to that effect. Then, as the Iraq situation worsened W’s only response seemed to be the signature rigidity of the on-again off-again “dry drunk.” As a lifetime advisor to corporate leaders, I remember thinking that he needed to get some serious counseling on both alcoholism and leadership — but that unless someone in the White House somehow managed secretly to slip a professional psychoanalyst onto the schedule, it ever happen. I decided to write a novel exploring how such an intervention might play out, if it ever happened. It took me about three months to finish the novel. I had an agent shop it to several big publishers, but, as one of them said, it was “too combustible.” Fortunately, it got picked up by an independent publisher of literary fiction prepared to crash it into print.”

Q: You say you had some input from your prison classes. Please explain, this is interesting.

A: “I have run self-development programs in New York prisons for more than ten years now. Many in my class have suffered addiction issues, and I developed some original ideas for helping them (which I included in my book, HOW TO BREAK OUT OF PRISON). One such idea is that “all prisons are mental prisons”, so, as I saw it, W’s rigid mindset, especially concerning Iraq, became his penitentiary. Another idea was that “we only pay attention to the things that we discover for ourselves”—so I chose to lead my class to form an understanding of their predicaments obliquely, by introducing them to conflicting ideas along with some powerful but somewhat ambiguous poems. I had my class study these readings, and then we analyzed them in class. This approach—which I call “constructive confusion”— turned out to be so profoundly life-altering that I felt Dr. Alter should use it to enlighten W. ”

Q: You have written about life changes, corporate headhunters and a thriller novel “Chancey On Top” that is being turned into a movie.

A: “A passionate love triangle with a wild business background. One critic with a literary bent also called it “the greatest modern showcasing of the sonnet form.”

Q: This book, though, is a fictional account (right?) which is firmly rooted in a real person.

A: “The writing was characterized by Dr. Charles Defanti (professor of literature at Kean University) as hyper-fiction—so realistic, he added, that he believed it to be fact and not fiction. But whether or not Dr. Alter is a real person who actually saw all this happen will have to be up to the reader to decide.”

Q: How did you feel you had the license (guts) to do this ….

A: “Writing the novel took some chutzpah but no courage. I saw the novel form as an appealing vehicle to showcase life-altering material I had assembled in a lifetime dealing with individual under stress at both ends of the social spectrum. I believed that if I got it right it would help just about any individual battling inner demons. If I were to compare the book to any work, I might say an amalgam of Albert Camus’ novel, THE STRANGER, and Ingmar Bergman’s movie, WILD STRAWBERRIES. THE STRANGER is the very literary tale of an innocent young man who gets pulled along by events and winds up where he shouldn’t be. WILD STRAWBERRIES is a tale of self discovery for an old man as he drives across the country to receive an honorary degree. In my novel, Dr. Mark Alter’s innocent intellectual curiosity tempts him into similarly dangerous and enlightening emotional and intellectual journeys.”

Q: ..and what would you say to Bush supporters?

A: “I would say that the novel will satisfy readers on both sides of the political aisle. I’m told that the premise—that W is/was drinking again—is something of an open secret in Washington. Be that as it may, the other facts I present concerning W’s bio-history are accurate, and to my knowledge nothing consequential has been left out. Dr. Alter also approaches W as a patient truly in need of meaningful help, so the reader sees him through sympathetic, caring, healing eyes—and hears a kindly, rational voice attempting to lead W to authentic understanding. I think the reader will come away with a 3 dimensional portrait of the man who is W.”

Q: Do you have a sequel in mind now that Bush will be leaving Washington and heading to a multi-million house in Dallas?

A: “I have begun on another book, but it is not about W. As to W’s future, I might say that Dr. Alter conducts several sessions—including marital therapy with Laura—at the Crawford ranch, so there might be some foreshadowing of the future in those pages.”

Q: What kinds of responses did you receive on the book?

A: “I have been gratified by the excitement of those who found the book as a riveting read but more than just a thriller. I was happy to be told that it is a fable, and to hear readers talk of meeting themselves on the pages, perhaps most especially where Dr. Alter brings W to an understanding of how he was emotionally wounded by his upbringing, and, in consequence, making wrong choices in his life.”

Q: Any reactions that have surprised you?

A: “I have been especially intrigued by the excitement of recovering alcoholics. They study it very closely, underlining passages, returning to key ideas, giving the whole thing a second reading.”