Judith Regan shoulda been a New Yorker writer

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I didn’t know quite what to make of the news Wednesday that former superpublisher Judith Regan was suing HarperCollins for being really mean to her. Happily, I’ve got Roger Parloff to think (and read the filing) for me:

Regan’s [complaint] reads like one of those humor pieces in The New Yorker, where it not-so-gradually dawns on the reader that the narrator is out of his gourd. Even though you’re hearing only one side of the story, that’s enough to make up your mind against the griper. …

Regan’s 70-page, 345-paragraph, 24-count complaint was filed in state court in Manhattan on Tuesday, and is available here. [Warning! Pdf!] It mainly alleges defamation and breach of contract, but, almost in passing, it throws in a couple counts of sex discrimination, too. “Under Jane Friedman’s direction,” she alleges, “there is . . . a pattern within HarperCollins of firing high-level women in order to surround herself with men.” (She gives no examples besides herself.)

The complaint is signed by attorney Brian Kerr, of New York’s 175-lawyer Dreier firm, but it has an astoundingly unfiltered quality to it. …