Archive for August 17th, 2014

Quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore (#1 in a series).

Sunday, August 17th, 2014

Yes, introducing yet another occasional series. In this one, I document weird stuff I’ve found at the local used bookstores, on other people’s bookshelves, or just roaming around. All books are real unless otherwise stated.

Our first entry?

The Washington Fringe Benefit

Yes, that’s The Washington Fringe Benefit by Elizabeth L. Ray. For the benefit of my younger readers, Ms. Ray was a clerk and secretary for a congressman from Ohio named Wayne Hayes. To quote Ms. Ray, “I can’t type. I can’t file. I can’t even answer the phone.” So why did Congressman Hayes employ her? Yep. She was basically his mistress, paid for out of Congressional funds. Here’s a link (by way of WikiPedia) to the original WP story.

All this took place in the Watergate/immediate post-Watergate era. When the story broke in May of 1976, it became a major scandal; Hayes ended up resigning from his committee chairmanship (“Committee on House Administration”) and, a few months later, from Congress itself.

Back cover of The Washington Fringe Benefit

I have not read the book yet, but it appears to be a roman à clef about Ms. Ray’s…service, so to speak, in our nation’s capital, with the various real persons (other than Ms. Ray herself) given nearly transparent disguises. It does have the advantage of being short (172 pages), but I can’t comment on the merits of the writing.

As far as I can tell, this is Ms. Ray’s only novel. She appears to still be alive, but her Wikipedia entry describes her as having “faded back into obscurity”. Former Congressman Hayes passed away in 1989.