Judith Regan

How interesting...

I had just finished reading and working on the review for BECAUSE SHE CAN by Bridie Clark from Warner Books for Rebel Reviews...

BECAUSE SHE CAN is a wickedly delicious roman à clef about the infamous Judith Regan, former dragon lady extraordinaire of the book publishing industry. You might have heard about her recently in the media furor over a book and television interview project she had planned with O.J. Simpson, titled If I Did It... (The book was scrapped; the interview was never shown; Regan ultimately flamed out and was fired -- a larger than life fall from grace.)

I first read about Judith Regan in Vanity Fair, January 2005:
"The Devil and Miss Regan" by Judith Newman:

"Is Judith Regan (a) the smartest executive in book publishing, (b) a victimized single mother in a sexist world, or (c) a foulmouthed tyrant? As the woman whose best-selling authors have included Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, and porn star Jenna Jameson eyes Hollywood, friends, ex-friends, and colleagues suggest the answer may be (d) all of the above..."

I was intrigued. Here was a beautiful, smart, very talented and outrageously successful woman, living life very much out loud, gleefully jumping all over convention and propriety in the book publishing industry.

As the head of her own imprint, ReganBooks, within HarperCollins (owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.), Regan was hugely, unquestionably successful in publishing and promoting books and making money. At one point, she had 13 books on the best-seller list in one year, an extraordinary achievement.

But, oh the things people said about her in this article:

• "...the highest functioning deranged person I've ever known..."
• "...good taste has never been Regan's forte..."
• "...public brawls with authors..."
• "...Machiavellian business dealings..."
• "...a destroyer of souls..."
• "...politically correct she is not..."

Regan started her career as a reporter for The National Enquirer in 1978. She went from there to Simon & Schuster, and then on to HarperCollins in 1994 when "Rupert Murdoch came courting..." Murdoch gave Regan her own imprint and so much more: "...he also offered what Regan had always craved: a chance to be a star outside hothouse media circles. She'd have a television talk show. [Cancelled] She'd have a chance to do movie and TV deals. She would be the Queen of All Media." [Until the O.J. Simpson dust-up, among other improprieties.]

At ReganBooks, all hell broke loose, amidst "the melodrama of Judith Regan's life." (You'll have to read the Vanity Fair article if you're interested in all that scandal and gossip!)

Since I read that article two years ago, I have kept an ear tuned for Regan news, and it seems there is always something. Part of the problem, and the secret to her phenomenal success, is that she published books no one else would touch: tabloid-style, sensational, often questionably appropriate books (porn star biographies, high profile celebrities and socialites, true crime, etc.) that catered to a more common element. But she sold a lot of books.

At the end of 2006, Regan announced a book and television project with O.J. Simpson, titled If I Did It... which raised all kinds of scandal and moral outrage, which ultimately resulted in the whole project being scrapped. The O.J. project, and a subsequent project about Mickey Mantle which was canceled (a kind of lurid biography, detailing the sports legend in "various imagined sexual situations"), doomed Judith Regan, at least with HarperCollins/News Corp. She was fired, and she's gone down swinging, in a fury of lawsuits and accusations. It is an amazing story, better than a lot of her best-selling fiction.

And then along comes the book, BECAUSE SHE CAN, written by a first-time author who actually spent time in the trenches with Judith Regan at ReganBooks, although she says Vivian Grant is a "compilation" not based on Judith Regan or real life events. Hmmmmm. Many of the stories I've read and heard about Judith Regan show up in BECAUSE SHE CAN, including an illicit, kinky affair with a prominent public official in New York City, a married man in a position of great authority. In real life, Judith Regan published a book by her rumored paramour, former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik, whose memoir, The Lost Son, was published by ReganBooks in 2001...and became an almost instant best-seller in the aftermath of 9/11.

The interesting thing...

Literally minutes after I had been working on the Rebel Review for BECAUSE SHE CAN, I picked up my Vanity Fair magazine, March 2007, and flipped it open to the next article (I read VF cover to cover every month), on page 236, and there was Judith Regan again: "The Trouble With Judith" by Michael Wolff (one of my favorite writers from way-back, with his business memoir, Burn Rate: How I Survived the Gold Rush Years on the Internet -- one of my all-time favorite books, but that's a whole 'nother story...).

My suspicions regarding the roman à clef were confirmed, along with a whole bunch of new information (all right: gossip) about Regan's and ReganBooks recent demise at HarperCollins/News Corp.

I love a roman à clef novel (okay, I'll stop!), especially when you know some of the reality upon which it is based. It is unusual to have it all laid out so handily, a reality-check key to read alongside the fiction to compare and contrast, but that's just what we've got here, and it is wickedly delicious.

Here's an interesting quote to end with, from the fictional novel BECAUSE SHE CAN by Bridie Clark:

"Maybe, I thought to myself. Maybe Vivian would find some way to rise again, stronger than ever. Phil was right; she was a genius. Vivian had a unique ability to see opportunities that others didn't, her work ethic was insane, and even her egomania could be considered an asset in certain circumstances. She was beautiful, brilliant. She had everything going for her, really...and yet I'd never encountered anyone who exuded so much misery and anger. And that was the shame of it all. What if a woman as capable as Vivian was was also able to treat her employees with some respect and decency? There'd be no stopping her."

Vanity Fair Links:
"The Trouble With Judith" by Michael Wolff (March 2007)
"The Devil and Miss Regan" by Judith Newman (January 2005)

Comments

[JESSICA LYNN CLABBATZ]

VICKY AND SHERRI, I THOUGHT YOUR BOOK RULES OF A REBEL HOUSEWIFE WAS GREAT. I AM NOT A MOTHER OR A HOUSEWIFE BUT I HOPE TO BE BOTH SOMEDAY. I THOUGHT IT VERY CLEVER OF YOU TO ORGANIZE YOUR BOOK THE WAY THAT YOU DID. YOU TRANSLATED THE REALITIES FROM THE MYTHS IN THE WORLD OF FAMILY LIVING. ALOT OF PEOPLE DON'T THINK THAT A FAMILY IS A FAMILY UNLESS IT IS PERFECT. SO I LIKED HOW YOU GAVE YOUR EXPECTATIONS OF LOVE, MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN AND THEN TOLD WHAT YOU REALLY GOT. I HAD VARIUOS FAVORITE PARTS BUT I RELATED MOSTLY TO THE PARTS THAT TELL EXCACTLY HOW WORTHLESS MEN ARE. YES WE LOVE THEM, BUT AS TIME GOES ON MORE AND MORE MEN CAN'T EVEN CHANGE THE OIL IN THE CAR ANYMORE. WOMEN REALLY HAVE MUCH HARDER NOW THAT MEN ARE LAZY AND THE COST OF LIVING IS OUT OF CONTROL. WE WORK, COOK, CLEAN AND IF THERE'S KIDS WELL YOU KNOW. THEY GO TO WORK COME HOME SIT DOWN AND WANT SOMEKIND OF REWARD FOR WORKING. A BEER, FOOT RUB, SOMETHING, BUT THERE DAY IS OVER. WE HAVE TO KEEP PLUGGING AWAY BECAUSE IF WE DON'T DO NO ONE WILL. I HEARD ON NEWS THE OTHER DAY THAT LESS AND LESS PEOPLE ARE GETTING MARRIED. WELL I KNOW THAT ALL MEN AREN'T COMPLETLY WORTHLESS BUT I AM 21 YEARS OLD AND DATING ALREADY MAKES ME SICK. LIVING WITH SOMEONE IS EVEN HARDER AND I DON'T THINK THAT I CAN DEAL WITH SOMEONE ALWAYS WANTING TO DO, WHAT THEY WANT TO DO, WHEN THEY WANT TO DO IT. ANYWAY. YES I GET ALITTLE WORKED UP ABOUT MEN, BUT I REALLY JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU TWO LADIES THAT I THINK YOU ARE VERY AMBITIOUS WOMEN FOR HAVING FULL TIME LIVES AND TAKING THE TIME TO WRITE THIS BOOK. IT REALLY MADE ME LAUGH AND I HOPE I FIND A FRIEND LIKE YOU TWO HAVE FOUND IN EACH OTHER. SO THAT I DON'T GO CRAZY.