September 11, 2001: planes were crashing, hearts were breaking, and Walter Kirn’s most recent novel, Up in the Air, was plummeting in sales. It could have had something to do with the fact that the cover featured men in suits whizzing around and plummeting to the ground like rogue jets. (One of them was even on fire.) Nevertheless, the story of Ryan Bingham, a frequent-flyer-mile-hoarding management consultant who specializes in firing corporate workers seemed doomed for anonymity. Then, in 2005, Thank You For Smoking director Jason Reitman pulled through, locking down George Clooney as leading man in the book’s film adaptation.
