As Allan Topol practiced law in Washington, D.C., he developed
a second career as well: novelist.
The Pittsburgh native managed to get two books published with
William Morrow & Co. Each generated 9,000 to 10,000 hardback sales.
There were a few foreign language translations and a
movie option that never panned out.
Not bad for a beginner.
But Topol, who grew up in East Liberty, walked away from his second career.
"I really spent my time with my law practice during those years," he said.
"And durmg those years we had four children."
It would be 20 years before another Allan Topol novel hit the bookstore shelves.
But he's back with a vengeance. His latest novel, "Spy Dance," has made three
best seller lists across the country for at least two weeks in a row, and has
sold nearly 200,000 copies.
In fact his publisher, Penguin-Putnam Co., has a goal of 300,000 copies for the
book, which is out in paperback only.
He credits his wife, the former Barbara Rubenstein of Squirrel Hill, a book reviewer
who reads all his drafts, and his agent, Henry Morrison, for the success of "Spy Dance."
"Henry is unique. He works with the author from conception of the story to outlines,
through drafts," Topol said. "He had an idea to build on my knowledge of Washington,
and after we talked for a while the idea that would become "Spy Dance" took shape...
He was incredibly valuable."
"Spy Dance" is a cloak and dagger novel about an ex-CIA agent forced into hiding for
five years. Living in Israel under an assumed name, someone has discovered his identity
and is trying to force him back into service —against the United States.
Sounds like the stuff paperbacks are made of, but Topol's book has a message.
In fact, it has two of them:
First, Israel still has a cooperative relationship with the United States, that is
mutually beneficial. Second, it is "unconscionable," as he puts it, that the nation --
some 30 years after the Arab oil embargo remains dependent on Saudi oil when the regime
there is "despotic and precarious."
"I wanted to write a book where people would come away with some information about the
messages, but I didn'! want it to sound preachy," Topol said.
His messages may be hitting home harder because Israel and Saudi Arabia are so much
in the news-now.
"I think the sales have been so brisk because, like lots of things in life, the timing
was good," he said.
A chemistry graduate from Carnegie Mellon University, Topol became interested in writing
there, studying writing with the English professors whenever he could.
He went to Yale after graduation and got a degree in law, but he still had the drive to
write. He tried unsuccessfully to publish some short stories, but he had better luck with
his op-ed pieces, which appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Saturday
Review.
His next book, which has the China-Taiwan dispute as a back drop, should be out next year.
If that's not enough fame for one's life Topol has a bit more: Topol of "Fiddler on the Roof"
fame.
He said the two met for lunch once when actor Topol was in Washington for a perfomance.
"We decided we were probably distant cousins."