West Wing writer to make John Edwards movie

Aaron Sorkin, the screenwriter and producer best known for US political TV drama The West Wing, has bought the rights to a memoir by an aide to disgraced would-be presidential candidate John Edwards. In The Politician, Andrew Young tells how his former boss had an affair while his wife was thought to be dying with cancer.

When Edwards discovered his younger lover, Rielle Hunter, was pregnant he persuaded Young to tell the media that the child was his while Edwards clung on to the chance of power in the 2008 race to become the Democrat’s presidential candidate.

Sorkin confirmed he had reached a deal to re-tell Young’s story. “This is a first-hand account of an extraordinary story filled with motivations, decisions and consequences that would have lit Shakespeare up," he said.

He added: "There's much more to Andrew's book than what has been reported and I'm grateful that he's trusting me with it."

Young, for his part, was clearly delighted to have Sorkin involved. "He was the perfect one to write this," he said. "I was really impressed by him and really impressed how he was focused on the tragedy of this rather than the tawdry."

Young writes in The Politician about how he was sucked in to facilitating Edwards’s affair with Hunter. “I also looked after Rielle's travel arrangements, which required some fancy footwork,” he writes.

“When I knew where the senator was staying, I made reservations in my own name, faxed copies of my credit card and state identification card, and told the hotel staff my "wife" would be checking in on my account.

“I used my credit card to book hotel rooms and flights for her, so Mrs Edwards wouldn't notice the money had gone. I even gave Edwards cash to give her – a few hundred dollars at a time – when I took him to the airport.”

By his account, Young looked up to Edwards as an “older brother”, swallowing his repeated assurances that he would reward him later. Edwards finally admitted the child was his in January this year.

The Politician, by Andrew Young, is published by Thomas Dunne Books, at £16.59. © Andrew Young 2010 ·