Glass's shattering book proposal

by Jason Gay

Word in Manhattan publishing circles is that a book project has been proposed by representatives of Stephen Glass, the former New Republic journalist who lost his job (as well as several other high-paying magazine gigs) after he was exposed for fabricating dozens of news stories with fantastical characters and premises (a 15-year-old hacker demanding a Ferrari from a software company; a conservative cult praying at a shrine to George Bush). Glass's tome -- allegedly nonfiction and presumably autobiographical -- is being billed as a Generation X parable about a witty twentysomething's rise and fall in the hyper-pressurized, hard-knock world of, um, magazine journalism.

Glass's camp -- agent Jonathan Diamond and lawyer Gerson Zweifach -- isn't talking about the proposal, and neither is the precocious author, who has gone into Amelia Earhardt mode ever since his phony hacker story was exposed by Forbes's Digital Tool. But publishing sources tell the Phoenix that the book proposal has been quietly shopped around Manhattan in recent weeks. One New York agent said that despite Glass's past transgressions, his book could command as much as the low-to-mid six figures. While just about everyone gets a second act these days, few can hope for such a plum part.