Copyright © 1997 by the Boston Phoenix, Inc. All rights reserved.

TJI: Media

Making book on the Woodward case

By Dan Kennedy

Start the bidding at a million dollars. That, according to high-powered literary agent John Taylor "Ike" Williams, is what Louise Woodward and Sunil and Deborah Eappen might receive should either party decide to write a book about the case.

"Normally these kinds of advances are in the six-figure range," says Williams, a lawyer who oversees literary projects at Palmer & Dodge, a Boston law firm. And Williams has plenty of experience in that area. He did the deal that put $1 million in O.J. Simpson's blood-stained pocket for I Want to Tell You (Little, Brown, 1995), and had a hand in Norman Mailer's Pulitzer-winning true-crime novel, The Executioner's Song (Little, Brown, 1979).

Surprisingly, another well-known Boston literary agent, Doe Coover, doesn't think there's anything more than a quickie paperback book in the trial. Not a single writer has contacted her, she says, adding that she doubts the principals in the case are complex or interesting enough to sustain a book -- although she notes that the legal drama created by the unexpected guilty verdict may change that. "I certainly think it's becoming more richly layered now, and there may well be a book in the trial's ins and outs," she says.

Williams, though, believes that what gives the Woodward case its power is not the legal maneuverings but its universality. Every day, harried working parents place their children in the care of someone who may or may not be emotionally capable of such a demanding task. In this case, the worst that could happen happened. His advice to Woodward and the Eappens: hook up with an established writer, and think in terms of big, "metaphoric" themes.

"It's everyone's nightmare," says Williams, who doesn't mind admitting he'd like in on the action. "I think this is an archetype."