Eric Rosenfeld, an activist hedge fund manager with a Harvard MBA, has focused his considerable intellect on the topic of gas—and not the kind you drill for.
Rosenfeld, head of Manhattan-based activist hedge fund firm Crescendo Partners, has penned “Mrs. Buttkiss and the Big Surprise,” a new children’s book now for sale. “Buttkiss is the charming tale of a big woman with a big secret,” according to the book’s web site. “She’s been holding in a fart…forever. And she’s terrified of what will happen when she finally lets it out.”
There’s no mention of whether Rosenfeld intends the book as an allegory of the corporate excess he’s been fighting as an activist.
Rosenfeld says the idea was hatched a decade ago while trying to get his three kids (then aged six, eight and 10) to settle down and go to sleep. “Knowing exactly what got their attention,” Rosenfeld notes on the site, he “dreamed up Mrs. B and her secret. The kids quieted down in minutes—and soon began to laugh. And laugh. By the end, all three were in hysterics.”
The book, priced at $16.95, comes with a whoopee cushion.
—Lawrence Delevingne