Edwards mistress inspired '80s novel

NEW YORK, Aug. 9 (UPI) -- The 1980s escapades of the woman with whom John Edwards has admitted to having an extra-marital affair were so wild they inspired a U.S. novel, sources say.

The former Democratic presidential candidate admitted this week that he had an affair with film producer Rielle Hunter, 42, and parts of her now-deleted Web site quoted author Jay McInerney as saying she and her friends formed the basis of his 1988 novel "The Story of My Life," the New York Daily News reported Saturday.

The newspaper said Hunter confessed to her past as a New York party girl on the Web site, parts of which have been preserved on Deceiver.com and the Huffington Post Web site. There, McInerney wrote that Hunter, then known as Lisa Druck, was his girlfriend in the 1980s and that she formed the basis of character Alison Poole.

In the novel, McInerney describes the Alison character as "a budding actress already fatally well-versed in hopping the clubs, shopping Chanel, falling in and out of lust, and abusing other people's credit cards."

The Daily News said a former acquaintance of Hunter's confirmed they frequented Nell's nightclub, which was notorious as a drug-fueled hot spot.