21/03/08...7:42 am
Wasn’t It Inevitable? Bear Stearns: The Book
Posted by Deal Journal
Who says book publishing is a slow-poke business? Only a few days after the meltdown at Bear Stearns, Bertelsmann AG’s Doubleday imprint has signed up a new book about the investment bank’s collapse and the troubles on Wall Street. “I was looking at my 401(k) plan on Friday and thinking there must be a narrative that illustrates what’s going on,” says Bill Thomas, editor-in-chief of the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group. Mr. Thomas then picked up the phone and called one of his authors, William D. Cohan, who is already under contract for another project. Mr. Cohan’s look at Lazard Frères, “The Last Tycoons,” won the 2007 Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award.
Mr. Cohan subsequently wrote a proposal over the weekend for a financial narrative that will place Bear Stearns at its hub. After speaking to Mr. Cohan’s agent, Joy Harris, Mr. Thomas struck a deal on Tuesday. The book, tentatively titled “Meltdown,” is expected to be published in spring 2009. “He will tell the story of the financial crisis in all its manifest glory through a narrative whose center is Bear Stearns,” said Mr. Thomas.
-By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
Trachentberg covers publishing for the Journal.
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