Wanda Clancy appears resigned to the idea of losing Tom Clancy, the best-selling author and her husband since 1969.
Letting go of the name Tom Clancy is another issue. And who gets custody of his literary alter ego, Jack Ryan?
Like any pair of divorcing multimillionaires, the Clancys have to divide real estate, stocks, savings accounts, investments and consumer goods, including the Sherman tank that Mrs. Clancy famously gave her husband several years ago.
But, if Mrs. Clancy's lawyers prevail, a judge will have to determine if there's a value to Clancy's name, which sells not only the Jack Ryan novels that made him a rich man, but volumes of military non-fiction books, his "Op-Center" series, young adult books and computer games.
These fruits of Tom Clancy's imagination have become the potential spoils in a complicated case, where family law collides with intellectual property law. The outcome is anyone's guess.
Thorny issues such as child custody, support, visitation -- even the cost of the children's first weddings -- have been agreed to, with little apparent wrangling. (Mrs. Clancy did complain to People magazine this week that her estranged husband communicates with her only by e-mail).
It's the custody of Jack Ryan that's particularly tricky.
So tricky that Mrs. Clancy's attorneys have requested two full months for the case on the Calvert County court docket, pushing it ahead to April 5, 1999. Clancy's attorneys have countered by asking that the economic issues be separated out and the divorce be granted immediately. That would free Clancy to marry Alexandra Llewellyn, a 31-year-old woman who is wealthy in her own right. The two met after the Clancys' separation in November 1996.
Clancy's attorney, Lowell R. Bowen, said this week that his client does not want to comment on any aspect of the divorce. Sheila K. Sachs, Mrs. Clancy's attorney, said that intellectual property and the pending economic settlement are not issues her client can discuss at this point.
But the court papers themselves, as well as the numerous articles written about Clancy over the past 14 years, provide some insight into the unusual case. In fact, it's not unlike reading a Clancy novel -- a compelling narrative loaded with technical jargon.
The Clancy divorce is not the first dispute over fictional hero Jack Ryan.
