On the front page of the USA Today life section for February 4th, writer Jocelyn McClurg covers BECAUSE SHE CAN:
She’s the most “hot-headed, ruthless woman” in the publishing industry.
She made her name producing “tabloid-inspired blockbusters” by porn queens and “a despicable serial killer.”
She hurls obscenities and lamps at her overworked employees.
She’s Vivian Grant, the “vile” villain of Because She Can (Warner Books, $23.99), a chick-lit debut in the Devil Wears Prada vein, out Monday.
The author, Bridie Clark, worked for 10 months in 2004 for Judith Regan, the deposed head of ReganBooks, who lost her job in the wake of the O.J. Simpson If I Did It scandal.
The roman à clef’s heroine, Claire Truman, is a young editor juggling romance and trying to survive the boss from hell.
Any resemblance to Regan is … purely coincidental?
The Harvard-educated Clark, 29, chooses her words as cautiously as a defendant on the witness stand.
“I can relate to Claire’s idealism, and her experience with this terrible boss,” Clark says during lunch in Manhattan.
