LITERATURE : FAME WITHOUT NAME STRIKES `ANONYMOUS'.

Byline: Anonymous

Who is ``Anonymous'' of ``Primary Colors'' fame? We'll probably never know. In this essay from The New York Times Book Review, the famous, nameless author pledges not to reveal his (or her) identity. But you may find some clues in Anonymous' account of how the book was written.

I have a confession to make. No, not that one. Don't be silly. It's this: I am suffering from post-traumatic success disorder.

It is an insidious malady. Very disorienting. I feel a little bit like Joanne Woodward in ``The Three Faces of Eve,'' minus a face. Which is not to say that I consider myself two-faced. This is a more subtle bifurcation: There are two of us now. There is ``me'' and there is ``Anonymous.''

I have come to this realization gradually, grudgingly; for a long time, I simply refused to believe that I had permanently subdivided myself. But the schizzy twinges grew more pronounced as I moved deeper into the work.

I began to feel different when I - or rather, A. - sat down to write. A. was funnier than I am. A. was more demure. A. was more dignified. A. was more purposeful.

Finally, I asked my agent: ``Have I changed over the course of this? Am I becoming Anonymous? Am I different now?''

She had to think about it for a moment. ``Well,'' she said, ``maybe a little.''

Closer to home, the reaction was less equivocal and more titillating. As publication approached, and the first, surprisingly favorable reviews began to appear, my spouse nuzzled my ear one evening and asked, ``Can I, y'know, do it with . . . Anonymous tonight?''

It proved a distressingly memorable experience, although there was a metaphysical hangover: Had I been unfaithful to myself?

Indeed, this soon became a theme, the heart of post-traumatic success disorder: Am I, in some way, being unfaithful to myself, to my friends, to the spirit of literary fair play? It's something I've been forced to think about as various underemployed commentators have ruminated on the ``morality'' of what I've done.

I don't want to keep you hanging here. The answer is no. I wrote a novel and didn't put my name on it. I'm proud of the book, but I still don't want my name associated with it.

The rationale for this has changed - and deepened - over time. But let me reconstruct the stages as best I can.

I didn't intend to be anonymous. I wanted to be pseudonymous. My reasons, initially, were a combination of cowardice and whimsy.

The inspiration was Dickens: I wanted to write a serial, published monthly in some magazine. It would be light and naughty in the Victorian manner but not quite scandalous. The pseudonymity seemed appropriate to that project - and also to a deeper agenda.

I wasn't sure I could bring it off, and didn't want to make a public fool of myself. I wrote a chapter and submitted it to an agent.

``This is interesting,'' she said. ``Write another chapter.''

That was easier said than done. The computer had eaten my first chapter twice. Henry Burton met Jack Stanton for the first time three different times. He'd had to re-meet Susan Stanton twice.

I'd been surprised by my persistence, reconstructing the thing. I am, by nature, superstitious - but I never stopped to wonder if the computer was channeling some cautionary message from higher authorities. I just plugged away, demonically.

My compulsion had to do with the main characters but also with the process of modern politics itself. I wanted to give a sense of the velocity, intensity and texture of the game, and of the remarkable people who played it.

The 1992 presidential campaign seemed archetypal and perfect for my purposes, given the mix of scandal, idealism, eccentricity and creativity.

I should note here, with some vehemence, that although I was inspired by familiar political types and occurrences, the characters who emerged were their own people - the amount of ``inside'' information involved was less than minimal. None of the dialogue was verbatim. No confidences were betrayed.

Later on, I was surprised (and flattered, but also sort of horrified) when various well-known public figures testified to the authenticity of ``Primary Colors'' and began to accuse one another of writing it.

I quickly learned that most of the banal things people say about writing novels are true, particularly the one about the characters taking on lives of their own.

When I began, I had no idea where ``Primary Colors'' was headed. But as I searched for some way to extricate myself from Chapter 2, Susan Stanton suddenly started talking - heatedly, and in some detail - about how, 20 years earlier, her draft-evading husband, Jack, had insisted on visiting, and comforting, the families of boys who'd been killed in Vietnam.

Wow. Great story. I'd never heard that before. I gave my agent the second chapter. ``Write another,'' she said.

No problem. I wrote two more.

``OK,'' she said, ``I think maybe we should try to sell it now.''

She typed up a title page. It was deliciously generic: ``Untitled'' by ``Anonymous.'' This was - hard to believe - only about a year ago.

The reaction from Random House was immediate - and gratifying. The notion that I should remain Anonymous was immediate as well.

I had mixed feelings about it. It seemed pretty blatant. I'd been planning a more low-key pseudonym - Nicholas Badnaille, since the Machiavelli family crest features a cross and nails, and the name is said to be derived from the words ``bad nails.''

But I wasn't about to argue over details. Anyway, I was still stuck on the mystery and whimsy of keeping my name out of it. Far more important to me than the ``Anonymity'' question was a letter I soon received from my new editor. He praised the work and pointed out something that I wasn't quite aware of: The book might be naughty, and perhaps even scandalous, but it wasn't cynical. In fact, he said, it was rather ``hopeful.''

Hopeful? Well, yes. I realized that ``Primary Colors'' - the title was my editor's idea as well - would stand or fall on the strengths of the characters, not their weaknesses.

The weaknesses were gaudy and appalling, to be sure. But we're all weak, one way or another - and a politician who screws around or plays the game just to wield power is no great surprise in art or life.

What made Jack and Susan Stanton so volatile and provocative was that their intentions were good. Their humanity was distorted by the intensity of their ambitions and appetites, but they were palpably human; their ability to seduce - in public and private - was infuriating and almost sociopathic, but it was motivated by something more complicated, desperate and benign than simple self-aggrandizement.

I still wasn't sure where the book was headed, but I suddenly had a better sense of what it was about.

In retrospect, I suppose, my decision to remain permanently Anonymous was set in concrete the moment I - or rather, my agent - signed the contract with Random House. The contract was not with ``me.'' It was with ``Anonymous.'' For ``me'' ever to indicate otherwise seemed a moral breach of some sort.

Of course, I didn't realize that at the time. There was a whole lot I didn't realize at the time. But absent a compelling reason to do otherwise - and I can't think of one offhand - I will remain Anonymous because that's the deal I made. It's as simple as that.

Well, maybe not so simple as that. It hasn't been simple at all. I did not anticipate that there would be such a frenzy over my ``true'' identity. (But then, I never expected the book would be as successful as it's been; people aren't supposed to be very interested in politics, or so I've been told).

It has seemed, at times - in the minds of a few poor souls, at least - that ``Primary Colors'' was not a novel but a parlor game about guessing the identity of the author. People who've never read the book have speculated with great authority about who wrote it.

I realize that I've been the commercial beneficiary of all this, and that much of it was inevitable, but it's still been pretty perverse and occasionally nauseating. Too late, I gained a better sense of how Jack Stanton must have felt as the witless, ravenous pack descended on him in New Hampshire.

On the whole, though, the book has been received on its merits - which was one of the ancillary purposes of anonymity. I wanted the book to be reviewed, not the author. As it happened, the critical reaction was far more favorable than I had any right to expect (an anonymous author is an easy target). And the intensity of the public response has been an absolute joy.

I have regretted not being able to share this with friends. But I have spared them a burden as well, because I've learned that keeping a secret can be an exhausting thing.

By remaining Anonymous, I have also saved them from a different sort of exhaustion: the burden of listening to me strut and brag, feigning modesty while citing the latest sales figures, pompously opining about politics or literary craft.

As I said, Anonymous is more demure and dignified than I am. And that, in the end, has been the deepest, most gratifying - least expected - transformation: Anonymity imposes a strict discipline and an almost religious humility.

I am a better person for having kept my mouth shut. And a freer one. I am free to live among you, unnoticed and unobtrusive. I am free to write paragraphs like the first one above, without having my spouse kill me.

I am free to try my hand at this again. And believe me, I will.