Joe Hagan, a contributing editor to New York magazine, has snagged a seven-figure book deal to write about the controversial and colorful founder of Rolling Stone, Jann Wenner.
But there is a healthy degree of skepticism surrounding the project.
At least two previous book projects, which at one time or another were said to have been done with Wenner’s full cooperation, were scuttled over the past decade.
Hagan, who penned the explosive cover story on Alec Baldwin for New York recently, referred calls to a spokesman for the Knopf imprint.
When asked if he had an “iron-clad agreement that Wenner would cooperate,” the spokesman responded simply, “Yes.”
That kind of written contract is very unusual, especially for a book that is not a memoir or an as-told-to book.
“The book is unauthorized,” insisted the Knopf spokesman. “Jann has agreed to cooperate, open up his archives, talk at length on the record. But Wenner has no say in the final pages.”
“Tough Jews” author Richard Cohen thought he had a deal in 2011 and had secured an agreement for a seven-figure advance from the Spiegel & Grau imprint of Random House.
But then Wenner was said to have objected and the deal was suddenly off. The Wenner side insisted that he had never promised to cooperate.
Cohen’s agent, Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, at William Morris Endeavor, was quoted as saying at the time, “Jann had come to Rich asking him to do it. After it got snapped up, Wenner had a change of heart.”
A bio from Lewis MacAdams, a poet and writer who is very active in the environmental group Los Angeles River Foundation, had a deal to get full access and cooperation from Wenner in 2004. He spent more than five years working on the project, also under a contract from the Knopf imprint of Random House.
Random House acknowledged, “We had a contract with MacAdams. Years passed without final pages materializing. So we killed the project.”