cbellamy@heraldsun.com; 419-6744
DURHAM -- Legal proceedings interrupted former John Edwards aide Andrew Young's book promotion tour last week, but it hit high gear Monday after GQ magazine published the first public interview with Rielle Hunter, who sued Young for tapes and other personal items in his possession.
News of the interview, in which Hunter rebuts many of the points in Young's memoir "The Politician," came one day before Young's reading today at Barnes & Noble Booksellers at Streets of Southpoint.
In a brief phone interview Monday, Young said he was fielding multiple radio and television interviews.
He noted the irony of that "coming from a guy who has a fear of public speaking," a point he alludes to several times in his book.
Since publication of the book in January, Elizabeth Edwards has contacted him by e-mail, but John Edwards has made no attempt, Young said.
Elizabeth Edwards e-mailed him and his attorney directly threatening an alienation of affection lawsuit against him, and the return of e-mails and voice mails, Young said. She also asked him to return $250,000 to go toward "some foundation." She further told him that she "was not near death" and "would live well past this litigation."
Booksellers said they were not seeing higher sales because of recent events. The Regulator Bookshop said it last sold a copy on March 11. Land Arnold, a co-owner of Flyleaf Books in Chapel Hill, said sales had not increased a lot because of interest in the case. However, Young will sign at Flyleaf Monday and "we're hoping for a big spike of interest," Arnold said.
Last week, a judge purged contempt charges against Andrew and Cheri Young; the charges were related to a reported sex tape and papers. Hunter sued to recover the items, and a judge finally forced the Youngs to turn over the items to the court.
Young issued a public statement -- in the book, he says, at John Edwards' request -- claiming he was the father of Hunter's daughter. Edwards later admitted he was the father.
The tapes were left behind when Hunter first lived with the Youngs while they were trying to keep Edwards' paternity secret to shield his 2008 presidential bid from scandal. Young reveals the existence of those documents in the book's final chapter.
When he discovered the tape, the Youngs "knew immediately that we now possessed something powerful," Young writes in the book. While he and Cheri did not plan to use the materials in "any nefarious way," he planned to put the materials in a safe box, and give a copy to an attorney "with instructions to make it public, if necessary, should anything suspicious befall us."
Young offers several reasons for writing the memoir, including "to make money to support my family at a time when no other job was available to me." He further states that he wants to "end years of gossip and lies about me, John Edwards, and a host of people who deserve better than to be remembered only as sinners or fools."
He calls the book "an exercise in my own understanding," an attempt to "learn something from the trauma suffered by so many who believed in what they thought John Edwards represented. ..."
Young was born in Asheville, but grew up in Durham and attended Jordan High School. He got an undergraduate degree from UNC-Chapel Hill and a law degree from Wake Forest University. His father, the late Rev. Robert T. Young, was Duke Chapel's Minister to the University from 1973-83.
The bulk of the book is Young's chronicle of his time with John and Elizabeth Edwards. He first met John Edwards at a trial lawyers conference in Myrtle Beach in 1998. Young volunteered for Edwards' Senate campaign. After Edwards' election, Young volunteered to drive and perform other duties as the senator's "body man," a position that Young saw as a stepping stone to a high-powered political position. "The person chosen for this job," Young writes, "is granted a high level of trust and responsibility, and a good performance can lead to big opportunities." The job also "encourages a kind of fierce loyalty that is rarely seen outside of families," he writes.
As a "body man," Young would pick Edwards up from the airport, making sure to have chilled sodas, snacks, even a meal depending upon the scheduling circumstances.
