Cohen doesn’t look or sound like someone at home with the printed word, but neither does his former boss, who claims to have written, if not read, more than a dozen books. Like Donald Trump, he will need a hack in the back room to shape his memories and observations into full sentences. I see Cohen’s book as more personal and reflective than Trump’s The Art of the Deal or Think BIG and Kick Ass. I see a book with a softer focus, something intimate and shareable, a worthy addition to the grand tradition of American publishing: From Stooge to Stoolie: How I Learned to Live Again, Laugh Again, and Love Again—and How You Can Too. The jacket photo will feature a pastel sweater draped casually over the shoulders of the nominal author, covering his prison jumpsuit.

The evolution of Michael Cohen is now an accepted thing—we all know, or are supposed to know, that over the last year, or even longer, Cohen was transformed from one kind of guy into another. The story is being spun by an unavoidable man named Lanny Davis, whom Cohen rescued from the Washington slagheap and hired to play his attorney on TV. Davis describes a tale of penance and rebirth, a slow journey from darkness to light. “He made a turn,” Davis told PBS’s Judy Woodruff, who seemed to be buying it, “after serving Mr. Trump and doing a lot of things he’s not so proud of.”