By Annie Ross
Philly journalist Buzz Bissinger and Caitlyn Jenner are doubling down on their collaboration last summer in Vanity Fair.
Former decathlete Jenner will pen a memoir about her public gender transition with Bissinger, who helped debut her new identity in a now-iconic Vanity Fair cover story last June.
The yet-to-be-titled book, co-written with “Friday Night Lights” author Bissinger, who is also the author of “Three Nights in August” and “A Prayer for the City,” a four-year-long study of Philly while Ed Rendell was mayor, is slated for a spring 2017 release, publisher Grand Central announced yesterday.
“It’s really about pain; it’s about isolation. It’s about fear, and it’s about the vast difficulty of being different,” Bissinger told the New York Daily News.
“If I didn’t think this had the potential to be a great book and an important book, I wouldn’t do it.
“I have gender issues in my own life. I like to cross-dress; I have a leather fetish,” Bissinger said. “Frankly, she has helped me deal with my issues and be proud of them.”
The veteran reporter added that he plans to hold Jenner to his own journalistic standards.
“I told her, ‘Your whole life has to be out there and I’m also going to interview dozens of other people,'” Bissinger said.
He stressed that Jenner was game for the grueling, soul-searching writing process, citing her Olympian work ethic.
“The thing you have to remember about Caitlyn is that she’s an extremely focused individual,” he said. “She gets it.”
