THORN: Book about Spitzer won't be a quickie

By Patti Thorn, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Thursday, May 8, 2008

Mary Altaffer / Associated Press

Penguin has signed two outsiders to write about the downfall of Eliot Spitzer, seen here with his wife, Silda.

Eight weeks.

That's how long it took for news of an Eliot Spitzer book to hit after Spitzer's sex scandal broke in March. Which brings up a question: Hey, what took so long?

OK. I'm being facetious. Still, I am rather surprised we haven't heard about any Spitzer book deals sooner, given the rough-and-tumble, ripped-from-the-headlines nature of modern publishing.

We're still waiting to hear about deals with the main parties - Spitzer, his wife and his call girl - but last week, Penguin announced it had signed outsiders Peter Elkind and Alex Gibney to write about Spitzer for its imprint Portfolio.

Elkind is co-author of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Gibney is writer and director of the documentary film of the same name. Both are planning to make a documentary on Spitzer, in addition to the book.

Unlike the Enron film, which features lots of pasty-faced white men in ties, the Spitzer movie should have more interesting visuals to draw on. Let's just say any ties will be optional.

And unlike the sex Spitzer had with his $4,300 escort, the book will be no quickie, a Portfolio exec told Associated Press.

"He's going to do what he does best," said the exec, "come back with a very, very satisfying, in-depth and complicated story."

Meanwhile . . .

When it comes to controversy, Jonathan Franzen's 2001 brouhaha probably didn't spawn as much shock as Spitzer's love bomb, but still, you probably remember it all these years later. After his novel The Corrections was chosen for the Oprah Book Club, Franzen publicly dissed the club and its readers - setting off a spate of press that was, uh, shall we say, less than kind.

So you'd think the author would know when to zip his lip.

But noooo.

Last week, at a Harvard event, Franzen took aim at modern book reviews - and New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani, in particular.

On the state of reviewing, he said, (as reported in the Harvard Crimson): "The reviews tend to be repetitive and tend to be so filled with error that they're kind of unbearable to read, even the nice ones. . . . So few people are actually doing serious criticism. It's so snarky, it's so ad hominem, it's so black and white." Then he slid his semantic sword through Kakutani: "The stupidest person in New York City is currently the lead reviewer of fiction for the New York Times."

Ouch.

All I can say is, for a man of letters, you'd think Franzen could find a few tactful words to use every now and then.

And as if that's not enough controversy . . .

It seems the Rocky raised some eyebrows itself recently. After we ran a review of former President Jimmy Carter's new book about his mother, (A Remarkable Mother), someone named "thetravelmaven" posted a comment on our Web site that began like this: "Miss Lillian must not have had many nice things to say about Jewish people while she was busy raising her brood. Jimmy has done just about everything BUT come out publicly and say that he is, in fact, a proud, card carrying anti-Semite."

That caught the eye of Chicago's WGN Radio news anchor and freelancer Steve Bertrand, who asked Carter about it during an interview he did with the former president for a Barnes & Noble podcast.

In defense of his mother, Carter noted that one of her most prized accolades came from "a strong group of Jewish leaders in New York, who honored her as a woman of the year. She really relished that as the prime possession she had in awards the rest of her life."

In other words, "some of her best friends are . . . " He went on to talk about his own record in regard to Israel. For the full podcast, go to bn.com and click on "B&N Studio" on the left rail of the home page.