“My wife hears me laughing in the middle of the night while I’m in the den writing and wants to know what’s going on. I tell her, ‘You wouldn’t believe what this character just did ...”

The photo of a teenage Bill Clinton shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy is well known. Ted Venetoulis, a kid from Patterson Park High School who made good in business, politics, publishing and now the craft of the novel, has one of himself and JFK just like it.

The photo reflects Venetoulis’ fascination with and talent for politics from an early age. Though his mother, Flora, dreamed that her Teddy might one-day be the country’s first Greek-American president, Venetoulis became Baltimore County executive in the 1970s before losing a run at the governor’s mansion in 1978.

Now, Venetoulis has published his first novel, a political romp of power and adultery called “Hail to the Cheat,” published by Wandering Sage Books of Florissant, Missouri.

Didn’t you launch your race for governor from the front steps of your childhood home on Oldham Street in Greektown?
I did. My mother was Flora and my father was Gus, both born in the old country [Rhodes, Greece] and they worked like hell at Nick’s, a diner they owned at the corner of Newkirk and Eastern. We lived upstairs when I was little. For a kid from East Baltimore to accomplish what I did, I’m very happy.”

You’ve written books before this one?
In 1970, I turned a dissertation into a book called “The House Shall Choose” (Prentice Hall). It’s a history of the second presidential election, which was determined by the House of Representatives. It took 36 ballots to choose Thomas Jefferson over Aaron Burr and it was close all the way.

What moved you to move from historical writing to trying your hand at popular fiction?
A lot of it prompted by all these affairs politicians [like former New York governor Eliott Spitzer] were having.

And you’d always see the long-suffering wife standing next to him during the apologies and taking the humiliation.

My idea for the story began with wondering, ‘What if the First Lady found her husband fooling around and threw him out of the White House?’

It all takes place one holiday weekend when the staff is on retreat, the chief of staff is off celebrating his 50th birthday and the White House is literally empty except . . .

Except?
I can’t give that away.

So it’s a thriller?
It’s an amusing, funny book. The title was suggested by [local TV newsman] Richard Sher [and] I laugh every time I think about the characters. Based on my understanding of politics, I don’t think it’s so far fetched.

Jessica Berringer is the First Lady and she’s an extraordinary woman who stands up for her dignity and not her husband [then ultimately] stands up for her country.

There are some real figures in the book like Chris Mathews and Rush Limbaugh and Wolf Blitzer all together at the same media event.”

Where do you find time to write between your various business enterprises and civic duties like sitting on the board of the Maryland Port Commission?
Writing is a hobby for me and I’m working on another one now, which also has a political theme. I relax when I write, and begin to live inside the book, it removes you from the outside world – but it’s still all discipline. 

Books seem to be holding their own for now in the digital age but newspapers are dying before our eyes. What is the status of efforts by you and Robert Embry [of the Abell Foundation] to buy the Baltimore Sun?
We’re waiting out the bankruptcy [of the current Baltimore Sun owner, The Tribune Company of Chicago] and now it looks like some of the creditors have begun suing one another.

The great cultural cities are losing their newspapers and we don’t want to see that happen here.

We’re still interested but the value is different [with each passing month] and the business keeps changing [via technology] but we believe a local community should have a local paper.

— By Rafael Alvarez
December 2009 print edition
Editor’s note: Ted Venetoulis is chairman and CEO of Corridor Media Inc.,
the parent company of Corridor Inc.

ABOUT THE BOOK
Hail to the Cheat is available at area bookstores as well as www.hailtothecheat.com, www.barnesandnoble.com and www.amazon.com. Ted Venetoulis will read from the novel at Greetings and Readings in Hunt Valley on Dec. 20 and the Ivy Bookshop in Baltimore on February 6.