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DAILY 03-02-10 MD SU C2 CMYK
C2 S KLMNO TUESDAY, MARCH 2, 2010
THE RELIABLE SOURCE
Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger
Obama’s
Povich and Chung, staying put.
UPDATE
ace in
You can take down the
“Welcome Home” banner: Maury
Povich and Connie Chung aren’t
moving back to D.C. after all.
The veteran broadcasters —
who were born here, raised here
MARIO ANZUONI/REUTERS
and launched their careers here
Lopez, in town for some laughs.
the hole
— decided last fall that they were
ready to return after two decades
HEY, ISN’T THAT . . . ? in New York and signed a
a71 George Lopez lunching with contract on a spectacular
about a dozen pals at Clyde’s in $9 million Tudor in Kalorama.
Chevy Chase on Saturday, But now the For Sale signs are
between his two weekend back up at the seven-bedroom
stand-up comedy stints at mansion. What’s up? “We decided
Warner Theatre. not to move,” Chung said.
a71 Joe Biden, with wife Jill and Chung, 63, told us that the
one of their granddaughters, decision to head south was “quite
waiting 25 minutes for a table at precipitous.” But then their son
Two Amys on Friday. Once seated, Matthew, about to enter his
they didn’t stay very long — but, freshman year in high school, got
hey! They waited in line, just like into his top-pick N.Y.C. private
everybody else. school. And Povich, 71, the main
advocate for a Washington move,
determined “it would have been
too much of a schlepp” to
RICKY CARIOTI/THE WASHINGTON POST
commute from D.C. to the
“The
Julianna Smoot, the new White House social secretary, learned golf from her dad, a former pro who has tips for Obama.
Stamford, Conn., studios where
he tapes his talk show. They never
history of
S
o, how will incoming social sisters. (“She was more into tennis,”
settled on the Kalorama place.
secretary Julianna Smoot said Dad.) Still, the new social
second-
influence the White House? secretary can be added to the very
Maybe President Obama’s golf game short list of administration women
will improve. skilled enough to join a presidential
generation
The president took up golf in foursome — adviser Melody Barnes
earnest last spring and spent almost played with Obama in October.
actors isn’t
every weekend working on his game. When he’s in D.C., Smoot and
Now he has an in-house expert on call: middle daughter Sarah Feighery
great in our
Ed Smoot, Julianna’s father and a (mid-90s handicap) like the course at
retired golf pro. Hains Point and hope to someday play
industry.”
The two men got to know each other 18 holes at Congressional Country
during the campaign, and Obama Club. “His short game is very good,”
called Smoot on Super Tuesday to wish said the Alexandria resident. “He’s a
— Michael Douglas in a new Vanity him well before a triple bypass. Nine really good teacher because he’s really
Fair cover story, hitting stands as his months later, Smoot was in Chicago. patient.”
sometimes-actor son Cameron “He invited me to play the night he Smoot, 67, said he has been reading
The couple has a new Violet.
awaits sentencing — 10-year was elected,” Smoot told us on about Obama’s game and admits he
minimum — on a drug-trafficking Monday. “I said, ‘Mr. President, could probably pass on a few tips — a71 Born: a daughter, Violet, to
plea. (Lawyers told an N.Y.C. judge whenever you want, give me a call.’ ” but only if asked. “He’s got big hands, hip-hop starlet Christina Milian,
that the 31-year-old’s problems are As a club pro in Clinton, N.C., Smoot so I don’t know if he has oversized 28, and super-producer
rooted in his dad’s superstardom.) taught his three daughters to play the
JASON REED/REUTERS
grips or not. I’m real big on grip: If it’s The-Dream, 31, last week, reports
But the Oscar-winning son of Kirk game — although Julianna, the oldest, The president, who took up golf last not right, you’re not going to get a People. (Assuming the newborn
Douglas was actually talking about doesn’t golf as well as her two younger spring, might be looking to improve. good shot.” takes her dad’s real surname,
himself and his own alcohol Nash.) First child for her, fourth
problems. for him. They wed in September.
GOT A TIP? E-MAIL US AT RELIABLESOURCE@WASHPOST.COM. FOR THE LATEST SCOOPS, VISIT WASHINGTONPOST.COM/RELIABLESOURCE
BOOK WORLD cob, in goofy teen fashion, jokes: away so that he can slip into nor-
by Maureen Corrigan “Asperger’s. I mean, doesn’t it malcy for a space. Iffy sourcing
Always topical,
sound like a Grade Z cut of What propels “House Rules”
A
n 11-year-old girl — a pre- meat? Donkey on the bar- out of Picoult’s home category of
cocious reader — was visit- becue?”) the sharply observed domestic
brings down
ing my home a few week- Asperger’s rules Jacob’s life drama and into the overlapping
ends ago. Over the past year, and the life of his family, which genre of crime fiction is the fact
Picoult fixes her
‘Hiroshima’
she’d devoured “The Great Gats- consists of his understandably that Jacob nurses an obsession
by,” “The Joy Luck Club” and resentful-but-guilty younger with forensic science. Thanks to
“Huckleberry Finn.” She noticed brother, Theo, and his wry and his mom’s ill-thought-out birth- by Steven Levingston
the review copy of Picoult’s 17th exhausted mom, Emma. (Al- day gift of a police scanner radio,
eye on Asperger’s
novel, “House Rules,” on my cof- though Dad sends child support, Jacob has even turned up at a Henry Holt is dropping publi-
fee table and said that she’d he fled the coop long ago.) Em- couple of crime scenes, unnerv- cation of “The Last Train From
liked some of Picoult’s other ma ensures that a sense of rou- ing the police with his Asperg- Hiroshima” after the author,
works, especially “My Sister’s tine — so crucial to er’s-related reluc- Charles Pellegrino, failed to ad-
Keeper” and “The Tenth Circle.” I Jacob’s emotional tance to make eye equately answer questions about
Author is in superb form with ‘House Rules’
told her this new novel was won- well-being — is strict- contact, as well as his a source in the book and the revo-
derful. ly maintained from detailed knowledge cation of his PhD more than 25
Big mistake. week to week. His of rigor mortis and years ago.
Shyly, she asked if she could clothes are color-cod- blood spatter pat- The action comes after Pel-
borrow it. I’m an educator, ed in his closet; daily terns. So, when Ja- legrino admitted last week that
someone who, by training and meals are color-cod- cob’s tutor — a lovely he was duped by a different
disposition, is inclined to ap- ed too (Monday food college student who’s source. The author said he was
plaud a young person’s thirst for is green; Tuesday, been working with removing all references to that
reading. But I grabbed that fat red; Wednesday, yel- him on his social fraudulent source and correcting
review copy out of the kid’s paws low), and his diet is skills — is found any false information the source
so fast she didn’t have time to restricted, since glu- dead, the police (and provided.
blink. The possessive hoarder tens and caseins
HOUSE RULES
even Emma and In the latest development, Pel-
who wants to keep all good spark meltdowns. As
By Jodi Picoult
Theo) suspect that Ja- legrino said Henry Holt insisted
books within reach had been Emma observes:
Atria. 532 pp. $28
cob’s obsession with he provide the name of a priest
awakened. I muttered some- “Frankly, with 1 in crime scenes may mentioned in the book under a
thing inane about the reviewers’ 100 kids in the United have led him to stage pseudonym. The priest, identi-
Bridal
TRUNK SHOW
code of honor forbidding me to States being diagnosed on the one of his own. fied as Father MacQuitty, admit-
lend books before they’ve been [autism] spectrum, I bet I could Inspired plot twists ensue. Ro- ted that he presided over a burial
published. Hey, if this 11-year- have a top-rated show on the mance and even a qualified re- on hallowed ground for another
old wunderkind has absorbed Food Network: Alimentary Au- demption hover tantalizingly on priest, Father Mattias, who had
anything from her reading, she’s tism. Jacob doesn’t share my cu- the horizon. But, again, it’s Jacob committed suicide after years of
surely learned the fundamental linary enthusiasm. He says that who will linger with readers. mental anguish over the Hiro-
March 4 – 7
lesson of every Jodi Picoult fic- I’m what you’d get if you crossed Desperate to connect with other shima bombing. Pellegrino said
tional family: Life’s tough. Jenny Craig with Josef Mengele.” people and yet hampered in his in an interview he wanted to pro-
Enjoy a 10% incentive
Throughout the long unfold- Picoult’s depiction of Jacob ability to do so, he is painfully tect the pseudonymous priest,
during the event, as our
ing of “House Rules,” Picoult and his family is complex, com- glassed off from the world of his who is quite elderly.
wedding gift to you!
keeps so many storyline stream- passionate and smart. The peers, as well as from most Henry Holt also questioned the
ers whirling in the air that it Hunts are likable, but none of adults. Picoult’s superb novel existence of Father Mattias and
Photo courtesy of Rivini.
would be easy just to praise her them is likely to be nominated makes us inhabit Jacob’s soli- was not satisfied with the au-
technical mastery. But though for sainthood soon: Jacob some- tude and abide his yearning. thor’s response.
Appointments suggested.
the multiple plots and narrators times rages and becomes physi- bookworld@washpost.com Pellegrino said the publisher
Informal modeling. are, indeed, adroitly managed, cally violent; Emma harbors fan- wanted him to explain why his
what most readers will cherish is tasies of “the life I might have Corrigan, who is the book critic for 1981 PhD from Victoria Univer-
the character of Jacob Hunt, an had”; Theo has taken to spying the NPR program “Fresh Air,” sity in Wellington, New Zealand,
18-year-old high school student on other families and breaking teaches a course on detective fiction was revoked in 1984. He said his
with Asperger’s syndrome. (Ja- into their houses while they’re at Georgetown University. PhD dissertation focused on a
measuring technology used in
the study of evolution. The de-
gree was revoked, Pellegrino said,
DOONESBURY by Garry Trudeau
when he got caught in the middle
of a battle between creationists
and evolutionists at the univer-
sity.
Henry Holt said it will not pull
Celebrating Over 100 Years In Fashion
the book off shelves but is ending
its relationship with the author
and it will not print or ship any
more copies. “The author of any
work of non-fiction must stand
behind its content,” the publisher
said in a statement.
NOW OPEN SUNDAYS FOR ALL BRIDAL TRUNK SHOWS Pellegrino is seeking to acquire
www.riziks.com • 202.223.4050 • 1100 Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 the paperback rights and hopes
Open Mon–Sat 9am–6pm, Thurs 9am–8pm • Complimentary PMI Parking to publish a corrected version.
levingstons@washpost.com
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