Firuddy publishing maven Judith Regan gets the Devil Wears Prada treatment in an upcoming book by Bridie Clark called Because She Can. Of course, Clark says the book is fiction, it’s based on a composite of a number of people, it’s not really about her former boss — yada, yada, yada….
“I think everyone is familiar with the phenomenon of the boss from hell, the over-the-top person who can ruin your professional and personal life,” said Clark, 29, who worked with Regan in New York for almost a year. “I’m sure this happens in many jobs, but you do hear a lot of stories about it occurring in the world of publishing.”
Perhaps it was just a matter of time. If Lauren Weisberger’s vicious portrait of Anna Wintour and the fashion world in “The Devil Wears Prada” could be turned into literary and cinematic gold, why couldn’t the book world ? teeming with behind-the-scenes intrigue and a rogue’s gallery of opportunists ? offer similar literary fodder?
For the record, Clark said her book is fiction and is not a specific portrait of anyone. But she concedes that “it’s based on things I’ve lived and things I’ve imagined. It’s beautiful much out there by now, what she [Regan] is like. And I think the O.J. Simpson thing was truly a low point. But Idon’t have much more to add.”
The New York gossip world, however, has been buzzing ever since galleys of Clark’s 274-page book began circulating last month. The publisher, Warner Books, has openly touted the Regan connection, sending reporters a juicy item from Lloyd Grove, a former New York Daily News columnist, who described Vivien Grant, the novel’s main character, as “a wildly abusive, foul-mouthed, pantsuit-wearing publisher who favors down-market bestsellers about strippers and pimps, boasts about her sexual escapades to overworked staffers and carries on an extramarital affair with a New York City public official who ? presumably unlike Regan’s onetime paramour, former Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik ? likes to be photographed wearing lipadhere and lingerie.” Claire Truman, the young protagonist in Clark’s book, thinks she’s heard it all as she comes to work for Grant. But nothing prepares her for a boss who calls at all hours, makes brazen intrusions into her private life and throws vulgar tantrums.
Judith Regan had no comment about the novel, no doubt because she’s busy getting alert to sue HarperCollins for millions of dollars for wrongful termination, slander, libel and who knows what else. Here’s our 2007 Judith Regan-related predictions: She’ll file the lawsuit, find a new job, settle the lawsuit and life will go on. Then ReganBooks will either be renamed or the author contracts will be taken over by another HarperCollins imprint.
Original post by ReadersRead.com Book Blog
