PAGES : Milken Closes Deal With Ghostwriter

Perpetual ghostwriter Michael Novak--the word processor behind Lee Iacocca, Oliver North, Tip O’Neill and Magic Johnson, among many others--will lend his nouns and verbs to Michael Milken, Hyperion books has announced.

Milken, ex-captain of capitalism and ex-prison inmate, will disclose “what it was really like to be at the white-hot center of a revolution that was changing the face of America,” publisher Robert Miller said.

The revolution in question was the financial boom of the 1980s, in which Milken reaped billions of dollars, largely through the trading of junk bonds.

Determined to “make the reader feel as if they were sitting at my desk,” Milken said the book will allow him to correct one of his few admitted missteps.

“I have said publicly that one of my biggest mistakes was not speaking out,” he said. “In this book, I intend to speak to issues openly and directly, and hope that my frank discussion will address some of the pitfalls I encountered as a result of living in a period when perception became reality.”

Milken said his portion of the book’s proceeds will be donated to charity.