The ‘Times’ Helps Us Keep Up With the RichesWhy do we know so much about how Alex Witchel and Frank, Simon, and Nathaniel Rich spent their summers? Because some crazy old Gray Lady told us!
Stan O’Neal Disinvited to the Literal and Figurative PartyFINANCE
• Stan O’Neal wasn’t invited to a big Merrill Lynch reunion party thrown by Evelyn Juan, the son of a Merrill founder. Guess Stan will just have to drink himself to sleep in his board-provided office. [DealBreaker]
• Goldman’s unbelievable success is forcing all the other top banks to dig deep into the honey pot and pay out a record-setting $38 billion in bonuses, despite losing $74 billion in market value. Goldman, of course, accounts for almost half of the bonus pool. Let’s just say it’s good to be Goldman. [Deal Journal/WSJ, Bloomberg]
• Steve Schwarzman spared no expense for his son’s wedding and the tab ran to $150,000, including a $20,000 BBQ supper, $7,000 for drinks, and $50,000 to rent an entire hotel and keep the riffraff out. Still pales in comparison to Schwarzman’s $3 million birthday bash. [NYP]
intel
If You Were a Rich Man — You’d Likely Have a Book DealWith Ant Farm — the very odd, funny, and frustrating humor collection from Simon Rich, Times heavy-hitter Frank’s No. 2 Son — attracting “Sunday Styles” attention last weekend in advance of yesterday’s pub date, his older brother Nathaniel, an editor at the Paris Review, has his own hot book making the rounds of houses. We’re hearing that The Mayor’s Tongue, on submission from Elyse Cheney Literary Associates, follows a widower and a young New Yorker whose paths converge in a small Italian town whose mayor is a supernatural evil force. (An Italian mayor as a supernatural but malevolent force? Wherever did he get the idea?!) Editors took it home over the weekend to read, so we should know soon whether Rich is the next Nicole Krauss (to whom he’s being compared, both positively and negatively) or the next — well, the next guy whose book we never really heard anything about. In case of the latter, good thing the Rich family Seders are already over.