The cad and the Clintons

In another time and another place, Robert Olen Butler would surely have been chased from the club with his britches down. A Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of novels and short stories, the man is a cad.

Few people have heard of him, despite his prize, but that could change in May when his latest book is published. It is called Intercourse, with a cover of limbs entwined to catch the eye of the casual reader. The intercourse Butler describes in 50 very short stories is between real people, only imagined. Some are still living.

When Prince Charles deflowers Princess Di in the palace of King Carlos of Spain, Di lies back and thinks, if not of England, then of her childhood memories in England. Charles finds Di