NINE TRANSLATION DEALS FOR ELEANOR CATTON’S DEBUT NOVEL, THE REHEARSAL!
It’s exhilarating in the middle of winter, in the gap between book fairs, and in the throes of deepening global economic gloom to see that a seriously talented and daring young writer can still impassion international publishers. Eleanor Catton (pictured left) was born in Canada in 1985, and was raised and educated in New Zealand. She completed an MA in Creative Writing at Victoria University in 2007 and won the Adam Prize in Creative Writing for her debut novel, THE REHEARSAL, which published in New Zealand last year by Victoria University Press. Caroline Dawnay signed Eleanor Catton up as a new client last November and Granta quickly snapped up English rights and then Little, Brown snapped up US rights. With a Brazilian offer accepted last week, the list of foreign publishers is now:
Holland: Ambo Anthos
France: Denoel
Sweden: Wahlstrom and Widstrand
Norway: Oktober
Italy: Fandango
Spain: 451 Editores
Germany: Arche-Atrium
Israel: Am Oved
Brazil: Record
Granta will publish THE REHEARSAL in July 2009 and Reagan Arthur will publish on her new imprint at Little, Brown in the US in early 2010. There is already advance praise for THE REHEARSAL from Kate Atkinson:
“A wonderful debut by a truly exciting new writer — The Rehearsal is compulsively good and while at the same time being immensely readable it also continually calls into question the relationship between so-called ‘reality’ and fiction, and the very nature of truth itself.”
and Joshua Ferris:
“This is a mesmerizing, labyrinthine, intricately patterned and astonishingly original novel. It’s really something else entirely. I suppose if you need a point of reference, you might say it’s as if Miss Jean Brodie got lost in Barth’s funhouse. But really it has no comparison. With The Rehearsal you get the style, the sophistication, the boundless possibility and the narrative pleasures that make up any good novel, but you get a bonus, too: a glimpse into the future of the novel itself.” Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End , one of the top selling debut novels of 2008, and shortlisted for the National Book Award
And there is also praise from New Zealand novelist, Emily Perkins: “This is a daring book, full of velvety pleasures but never afraid to show its claws. Eleanor Catton is crazily talented and insightful – and best of all, she makes language seem new.”
THE REHEARSAL is one of the most surprising and subversive debut novels I’ve ever read. You can listen to Eleanor Catton describe her unforgettable characters and the two levels of reality in the novel in a Radio New Zealand interview here.
FIRST TRANSLATION DEAL FOR CLAIRE KILROY’S NEW NOVEL
ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED deeply impressed me when I read the manuscript last year and I’m delighted to have now sold Dutch rights to Ambo/Anthos. Claire Kilroy’s acclaimed first two novels, All Summer and Tenderwire, were published in Holland as literary thrillers, and with ALL NAMES NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED she will move onto the prestigious Anthos literary list. Ambo/Anthos Publisher, Chris Herschdorfer, wrote to me after reading ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED that it “already has the feeling of turning into a modern classic”. ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED perfectly captures the nightmarish yet enticing atmosphere of Dublin before the boom. A group of aspiring writers have gathered at Trinity College to learn from the Great Irish Writer who they revere more than any other. Claire Kilroy (pictured above) adroitly writes from the point of view of the only male student in the group, Declan, as he attempts to record his tumultuous year in which he is simultaneously enthralled and manipulated not only by his hero, but also by the four beautiful women who are also in the group. What marks Claire Kilroy as a distinctively skilled writer is how precisely she conveys the personality each character, and exposes their flaws and tensions, while deftly infusing beauty, truth, and passion in this otherwise illusion-shattering tale. Faber will publish ALL NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED in the UK on May 7th, 2009 and I’m sure it will advance Claire Kilroy’s reputation as one of the most intriguing writers to emerge from the Irish literary scene. Claire’s primary agent is Simon Trewin.
German rights to Posy Simmond’s brilliant graphic novel, TAMARA DREWE, are now sold to Reprodukt, a Berlin-based publisher of some of the most acclaimed graphic novels. Meanwhile, the French edition of TAMARA DREWE has won two prizes in France: the Grand Prix des Critiques de la Bande Dessinée, and a “Fauve” at the international comics festival in Angoulême! It’s wonderful that TAMARA DREWE continues to receive new acclaim and international interest over a year since Jonathan Cape published the UK edition. Rights sold last year to Houghton Mifflin/USA, de Harmonie/Holland, Denoel Graphic/France, Sins Entido/Spain, and Minumsa/Korea. Film rights were optioned by Ruby Films.
FANTASTIC REVIEWS FOR NEW FICTION AND NON-FICTION
Samantha Harvey’s debut novel THE WILDERNESS is now published by Jonathan Cape and Nan Talese Books/Doubleday and the first reviews from both the UK and US confirm that this will indeed be one of the most talked about debut novels of 2009: “In the glut of novels being published at the moment a really exciting debut is as rare as it ever was. Samantha Harvey’s first novel is an extraordinary dramatisation of a mind in the process of disintegration. Jake, 65, is an architect with Alzheimer’s, and his memories lie around him in puzzling fragments. He knows that he designed the prison, and that his son is an inmate, but he can’t remember why. He can’t recall what happened to his daughter, or his wife. He doesn’t know which of his memories are real, but some are intact, and Harvey uses these to build a picture of Jake’s history. Brilliant – read it now, before it scoops up all the prizes.” Kate Saunders, The Times
“Samantha Harvey’s debut novel is a brave and intelligent crafting of narrative around narrative’s ruins in the mind of a sufferer from Alzheimer’s Disease…Harvey submerges the reader in a literary unfolding of dementia…a mesmerising work of patient compassion.” The Independent
“A stunning composition of human fragility and intensity.” The Guardian
“This is a finely written ode to memory, identity and love.” Financial Times
“The Wilderness is Samantha Harvey’s first novel, but it feels like a mature work…well-crafted and cryptic.” Book Forum
“[a] brave imagining…written by a first-time novelist with the steadiest of hands… Every life is a mystery, Harvey seems to be saying, even to the one whose life it is. Solve it any way you will” New York Times Book Review
“Closer to Virginia Woolf’s meditative novels than anything else I can think of.” Carolyn See, The Washington Post
Last year translation rights to THE WILDERNESS quickly sold to Ambo Anthos/Holland, DVA/Germany, Du Panama/France, Keter/Israel. I’m confident I’ll still match it with the perfect publishers in Italy and Spain.
Simon Mawer’s new novel, THE GLASS ROOM, is now published by Little, Brown and the reviews in the Guardian, TLS, Economist, Financial Times, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Time Out, Sunday Times, Independent, Spectator, and elsewhere are glorious. You can read in previous blog postings how swept away I was by reading Simon Mawer’s manuscript last year, and it’s gratifying to read the same sense of wonder and delight in the the reviews:
“A thing of extraordinary beauty and symmetry. The Glass Room is a novel of ideas, yet strongly propelled by plot and characterised by an almost dreamlike simplicity of telling. Comparisons with the work of Michael Frayn would not be misplaced, and there are occasional moments of illuminating brilliance…The Glass Room is a rare thing: popular historical fiction with integrity.” Ian Sansom, Guardian
“Here at last is a novel informed by exceptional intelligence…The ending is infinitely moving… It should be emphasised that this is not the sort of house that features in most English novels. There are no echoes of Brideshead here. This house — long, low, rectilinear — does not inspire sentimentality. It is its unfamiliar purity which is its outstanding feature, and this purity also characterises the novel itself…It is, in sum, a humanist novel, unusual in its breadth and scope, and also in its dignity. Definitely Bookerish.” Anita Brookner in Spectator
“In Mawer’s hands [the glass room] becomes a means for exploring the way people’s hopes for the future become part of their history. This he does beautifully… a compelling work of fiction.” TLS
“Mawer’s control of his themes of language, desire, memory and the power of place is extraordinary – as haunting and mysterious as the effect of sunlight on the wall of golden onyx that survives all the convulsions by which his characters are engulfed.” Daily Telegraph
“I couldn’t resist the thrilling and satisfying conceit Simon Mawer has woven around his fictional ‘Landauer house’. The book has the feeling of being the author’s tribute to the history of a country [Czechoslovakia], and people, to whose First Republic Hitler put paid barely after 20 years of astonishing flourishing. But it’s not a history lesson. The text is convincingly studded with a mixture of German and Czech that was the lingua franca of families like the Landauers. The Jewish fates of Viktor, Kata and others are lightly handled, which seems just right in this optimistic, joyful but never facile vision of human achievement. Mawer’s perfect pacing clinches a wholly enjoyable and moving read.” Lesley Chamberlain, Independent
Last year translation rights sold to Civilizacao/Portugal, Ambo Anthos/ Netherlands, Neri Pozza/ Italy, Kniha Zlin/Czech Republic, Record/Brazil, and Modern Times/Greece, and hopefully the reviews will soon entice publishers in France and Spain. Little, Brown’s UK edition is elegant, but I prefer the Italian edition, “La Casa di Vetro” (pictured left) which will be published by Neri Pozza on March 5th and it already is attracting interest from the Italian press.
Charles Chadwick’s exquisite new novel, A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE, is now published as a beautiful hardback by Short Books and the first review in the TLS reminds me of why I think of Charles Chadwick, represented by Caroline Dawnay, as one of the wisest and most inspiring writers I’ve ever read: “[A] gem of a book. In fewer than 200 pages…and in a gripping story, Charles Chadwick explores the effects of ugliness and the arbitrariness of destiny…Chadwick is too subtle a writer to give his story conventional happy endings: he shows for most people that complete happiness is a mirage.” I’m also pleased with this Waterstones bookseller’s comments: “In a sheer matter of pages the reader is plunged into the mindset of each family member creating great empathy with the unfortunate protagonist. The narrative moves along at a fast but coherent pace keeping the scenes moving from first to last with cinematic quality. ‘A Chance Acquaintance’ has all the hallmarks of a Booker Prize novel, sitting comfortably alongside the work of Michael Faber and Sebastian Faulks.”
And now there are great reviews in The Independent: “A short, beautifully controlled novel about the lives of two quite extraordinary people.”
The Sunday Telegraph: “An understated fable about hope, forgiveness and small kindnesses.”
And Susie Boyt in her popular column in The Financial Times: “A wonderful book, so brimming with humanity, intelligence and humour there was no incentive whatsoever to stop reading. It achieved what only very good novels do: it created a completely realised world of its own that wasn’t at all dependent on the real one. In the world of this book it was an enormous pleasure to linger. I lingered long…I’m not quite sure why this book had such a profound effect on me…Proximity to something of the highest calibre can make life’s disputes or disappointments seem all the more trying, petty, defeating, embarrassing and shameful. Yet this book had made the real world appear finer and more mysterious. Its immaculate ugly heroine, its seedy criminal underworld, even its episodes of neighbourliness, bristled with maximum life. There was something very daring about its moral stance that was exhilarating. It made me feel daring, too. The perceived slight I was reeling from gradually diminished in my mind. All day I had felt I could not possibly let it go, and now, with the help of this small masterpiece, it was gone.”
Luchterhand will publish the German edition Eine zufällige Begegnung in April, and Ambo Anthos will publish the Dutch edition in May.
I’m delighted to have now sold Luchterhand German rights to Charles Chadwick’s new manuscript, Letter to Sally. I read a few pages each morning during last year’s Frankfurt Book Fair not because I had to since I wasn’t planning to start pitching it then, but because the astonishing beauty and sensitivity of the writing helped me keep feeling human during the most intense and exhausting days of business. It is one of the most moving stories I’ve ever read about autumn, aging, memory, and the things we wish we had told people who are no longer near us. By the end of these 100 pages you’ve witnessed a woman’s loneliness and losses that have never before been revealed to anyone else, and you’ll feel blessed to be the recipient of such sorrowful yet perfectly articulated wisdom.
WHY US?: HOW SCIENCE REDISCOVERED THE MYSTERY OF OURSELVES by James Le Fanu, is now published by Harper Press/UK and Pantheon/US, and this controversial, engaging argument against the materialism that has prevailed in evolutionary biology over the past 150 years, and especially in current times, has some very positive reviews:
“In WHY US? James Le Fanu is proposing nothing less than a radical paradigm shift in the way humanity understands itself… WHY US? explores the fascinating ramifications of these insights, from explaining the gaps in the theory of evolution to re-examining the notion of a human soul. Le Fanu’s argument is simple and compelling; a bold attempt to reunite science with a sense of wonder.” The Times
“An insightful look at the intellectual underpinnings of science.” Kirkus
“Enthralling… One of the glories of Le Fanu’s scientifically erudite and beautifully written book is that such a sense of wonder is evident on every page, even as he lucidly analyses the limitations of that narrow intellectual prison in which science has languished too long.” The Spectator
There is also an interesting article that James Le Fanu wrote in The Telegraph on “How Life Has Preserved Its Mystery”. So far translation rights are sold to Portugal/Civilizacao, Brazil/Record, and Korea/Enigma.
BESTSELLERS
It’s great to start 2009 with five United Agents’ authors on the Nielsen Paperback Non-fiction Bestseller List!
Paul McKenna’s I CAN MAKE YOU THIN has been a bestseller longer than any other UK non-fiction title, and is now also the #1 selling self-help book in the USA where it was published in January by Barnes and Noble. Paul McKenna’s newest title, I CAN MAKE YOU SLEEP, was published by Bantam Press in January and went straight onto the bestseller lists. His earlier title, INSTANT CONFIDENCE, is also enjoying a new surge in sales. Paul McKenna and his agent, Robert Kirby, recently agreed a major new five-book deal with Transworld. Paul McKenna’s previous books are being translated into twenty-five languages. The funniest title translation I’ve ever seen is the Norwegian translation of “Quit Smoking” as “Slutt” which the publisher explained means “stop, quit, or end” in Norwegian. Paul McKenna’s profile and book sales are building in every country where he’s being published, especially in Germany, Italy, and Portugal. Spanish, Dutch, French, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Hebrew rights are still available.
The best surprise on the bestseller list is the paperback edition of PETITE ANGLAISE which was published by Michael Joseph/UK and Spiegel and Grau/US in hardcover last year and had great reviews and media attention, but disappointing sales. The Penguin paperback is a much better jacket and format and it’s wonderful to see it selling so well and there is a great new review on this popular web magazine.
Foreign rights to PETITE ANGLAISE were sold in ten languages, and I’m eager to soon be reading the manuscript of Catherine Sanderson’s debut novel, RENDEZVOUS, to be published by Penguin in August 2009.
A GOOD CHILDHOOD: SEARCHING FOR VALUES IN A COMPETITIVE AGE by Richard Layard and The Children’s Society, published this month by Penguin Press, is the report of a two year investigation, and draws upon the work of the UK’s leading experts in many fields, explores the main stresses and influences to which every child in the UK is exposed – family, friends, youth culture, values, and schooling, and will make recommendations as to how we can improve the upbringing of our children. I don’t expect it will be possible to sell translation rights, but it is interesting reading, even if you don’t have children, and it’s good this important report is getting extensive press and radio coverage. Richard Layard is represented by Caroline Dawnay. Last year I enjoyed reading his bestselling book, HAPPINESS, which was first published in 2005 and seems even more relevant today.
BAD SCIENCE by Ben Goldacre has been on the non-fiction bestseller list, selling at least 1500 copies each week, since Fourth Estate published in September 2008. It is the third top-selling science book in the UK, right below “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. Over 50,000 copies have sold. The Observer, the Economist and Times all picked BAD SCIENCE as one of the best books of 2008. HarperPerennial is publishing a new edition this spring and I bet BAD SCIENCE will keep being a best-seller all through 2009. US rights recently sold (via Zoe Pagnamenta) to Mitzi Angel for the new Faber US! Translation rights are sold to S. Fischer/Germany, Bruno Mondadori/Italy, Korea, Russia, Estonia, Croatia, and China. The Italian publisher, Bruno Mondadori, is especially keen and is publishing BAD SCIENCE this May 2009 to launch their new series Presente Storico (“Vivid present. The present that will go down in history”). I think this proves that BAD SCIENCE has appeal and relevance far beyond Britain. There is now a first offer from Portugal.
And climbing onto the bestseller list with steady sales each week, is GET THE LIFE YOU WANT by Richard Bandler. This is the first of Richard Bandler’s books to be published by HarperCollins (his previous titles were all self-published). It has enjoyed very good sales since it was published last month, and is now averaging over 1,000 copies a week. Harper have now sold over 6,300 copies in almost as many weeks, there are just over 18,000 copies out in the stores and they have just reprinted another 10,000 copies. In the self-help category, GET THE LIFE YOU WANT is selling second only to Richard Bandler’s friend and protégée, Paul McKenna. Rights are now sold in 10 languages to publishers in Italy, Romania, Norway, Germany, Poland, Greece, Russia, Korea, Japan, and Saudi Arabia.
NEW SUBMISSIONS
As you can see from this article in today’s Bookseller, my colleagues, the primary agents, have been busy selling new books. I’m immersed in reading new manuscripts in preparation for The London Book Fair (April 20-22). Listed below is what is top of my list to submit now and in the next few weeks:
Literary Fiction
THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU, Rosie Alison’s debut novel, sparked a lot of interest when agent Anna Webber sold it last fall to Alma Books and when publishing director Alessandro Gallenzi issued a press release saying, “The moment I started reading the book I was engrossed by Rosie’s style and vivid, almost cinematic descriptions, and drawn in by the plot. I thought I was reading a page from Jane Eyre or The Go-Between, but also immediately detected the signs of an unmistakeably original voice. The book has the narrative sweep of a Sebastian Faulks novel, and the psychological reach of an Iris Murdoch novel. This will be our lead title for the spring, and one of our most commercial titles to date.” THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU will be published in trade paperback in June 2009. You can read more about it at the Alma Books website here. I’m eagerly waiting to read the manuscript which Rosie has almost finished editing.
I’ve just begun reading Justin Cartwright’s new novel, TO HEAVEN BY WATER, and it’s wonderful to immediately be immersed in his the richly textured characters and subtle humour. Justin’s agent, James Gill, thinks this is one of the best novels he has ever written, a return to the style of his Hawthornden Prize-winning and bestselling novel, The Promise of Happiness. Excitement is building at Bloomsbury and TO HEAVEN BY WATER will be featured on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime in June. It is a touching and hilarious portrait of a London family, and also has dreamlike sections set in the Kalahari Desert.
THE CRANES THAT BUILD THE CRANES is a new story collection, by Jeremy Dyson, whose first story collection, Never Trust a Rabbit, was praised in the Observer as the missing link “between Roald Dahl and Borges”. Jeremy’s debut novel, What Happens Now, now in print as an Abacus paperback, was also acclaimed (Independent on Sunday: “Dyson’s one of those rare authors who can write from the heart while still creating something deceptively clever and complex”) and shortlisted for the Goss First Novel Award. Little, Brown will publish THE CRANES THAT BUILD THE CRANES as a hardcover in June.
SINGULARITY is a new story collection by Charlotte Grimshaw, an intriguing author from New Zealand whose first career was as a criminal lawyer. I was fascinated by the stories I read from her previous collection, Opportunity, which was shortlisted for the 2007 Frank O’Connor International Prize, and won New Zealand’s premier award for fiction, the 2008 Montana Medal. Charlotte’s first two novels, Provocation and Guilt, were published in the UK by Abacus, and SINGULARITY was bought last summer by Dan Franklin/Jonathan Cape from agent Caroline Dawnay. Each of Charlotte’s books have been published by Random House New Zealand and you can read about them here. SINGULARITY further develops the unique style and structure of Opportunity which the Montana Award judges praised as “By turns touching, funny, dark, and redemptive, this is a book for reading through then re-reading in a different order, for following clues, for setting aside and thinking about, and for getting lost in.” The stories in SINGULARITY cover a wide range of territory, from London to Los Angeles, Ayer’s Rock in Australia to the black sand beaches of New Zealand’s wild west coast. They can be read as discrete pieces, yet have five principal characters, and each contributes to a unifying narrative. Jonathan Cape will publish in February 2010 and already have created a stunning jacket image.
Nick Hornby is finishing a new novel, JULIET, NAKED. Can’t wait until it appears on my desk! You can read a brief description of what it’s about on this Guardian article, “Books: What not to miss in 2009“.
JERUSALEM, Patrick Neate’s new novel will be published by Fig Tree/Penguin Fig Tree/Penguin in July 2009. You can find out more about Patrick Neate and his acclaimed, award-winning books at his very hip blog and website here. His novel, Twelve Bar Blues, which won the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award in 2001, last year won an award in France, Le Prix De L’Inpercu.
I just finished reading Blake Morrison’s new manuscript, THE LAST WEEKEND, and I’m not ready to say what it’s about except that it is an intellectual yet accessible, suspenseful yet thoughtful, sinister yet beautiful tale of jealousy and revenge, and it is astonishingly different from Blake’s previous acclaimed fiction and non-fiction. I could see it being published as a literary thriller, and it also evokes for me “Amsterdam” by Ian McEwan and my favourite Edgar Allen Poe story, “The Cask of Amontillado”.
I was very impressed by David Szalay’s new novel, THE INNOCENT, when I read the unedited manuscript last summer. I will submit the edited manuscript before The London Book Fair to the literary publishers who are already most interested in this uncannily talented young author. His acclaimed first novel, London and the Southeast, was published by Jonathan Cape last year and won the Betty Trask Award 2008. The only option publisher is Mouria in Holland.
A WINDING ROAD by Jonathan Tulloch is one of the manuscripts that I enjoyed reading most in 2008 and will continue to champion most passionately this year. It struck the same chords in me as David Mitchell’s masterpiece, Cloud Atlas. I delighted in every word and am astonished by the range of Jonathan Tulloch’s storytelling, and am fascinated by every character, even when some scenes are among the most disturbing I’ve read in fiction. In-house enthusiasm is building at Jonathan Cape. Dan Franklin has described A WINDING ROAD as “a quantum leap” and has decided to publish it in hardcover (August 09) to be sure to get serious reviews and consideration for prizes (Jonathan Tulloch’s previous novels were paperback originals). The description for the cover reads: “One lost masterpiece, three epochs, countless lives…From the troubled genius of Vincent Van Gogh to the wartime birch forests of Ukraine, from the scintillating labyrinths of contemporary art and commerce to a mother’s desperate journey across Germany into the teeth of the Red Army, Jonathan Tulloch’s novel examines madness and creativity, love and destruction, the painting of a picture and the lust to own.”
Commercial Fiction
I’ve just started reading Christopher Brookmyre’s new manuscript, PANDAEMONIUM, and from the first chapters I can tell it is a bold and brilliant departure from his bestselling crime fiction. There are two intriguing plotlines that I suspect will converge in a terrifying climax: A group of Glasgow teenagers are on a rural retreat, seeking to get over a school tragedy through counselling, contemplation, smuggled booze, late-night liaisons and as much clandestine partying as they can get away with. Meanwhile, a top secret military experiment, long since spiralled out of control, is about to literally unleash the forces of hell. Little, Brown publishes the hardcover August 1, 2009.
I’m already gathering foreign interest for an outstandingly good debut supense novel that Simon Trewin has on submission to UK publishers, PAST GRIEF by Jane Casey.
LETTERS TO A LOVE RAT is the new novel by Niamh Greene whose first novel, Confessions of a Demented Housewife, was a bestseller, selling over 150,000 copies, and foreign rights sold in Italy (Newton Compton), Germany (Goldmann), Bulgaria, and Czech Republic. Niamh’s second novel, Confessions of a Demented Housewife (published by Penguin last summer) is a sequel to Secret Diary…and her new novel features a completely new character and story, a hilarious tale of heartbreak and heartache as three women try to put one man behind them. Penguin will publish LETTERS TO A LOVE RAT in May.
THE PIRATE DEVLIN by Mark Keating is a debut novel that agent James Gill read last October from his slush pile and within a month he submitted the manuscript and accepted a pre-emptive, two-book offer from Nick Sayers of Hodder who is known for breaking out Robyn Young and Conn Iggulden. THE PIRATE DEVLIN introduces a new hero of historical adventure, Patrick Devlin, as he is hurled into a new life of deprivation and treasure, terror and comradeship, of mistrust and loyalty. Transformed from servant to leader, he finds himself sailing in search of a tiny island and a King’s fortune – on a course that is set to pit him against his former master, a man who’s now sworn to kill him. James Gill (who also represents bestselling historical authors Harry Sidebottom and Robert Low) wrote of Mark Keating’s writing, “The voices of the characters are all incredibly well done – never a bum note. It’s totally believable. He knows these characters, obviously knows this world, knows the history and the legends, and he brings it to life con brio. And I love the baddies who are not total baddies, and goodies who are not total goodies. And I love the action, and I think he does the cheap violence of very expendable life brilliantly.” And Nick Sayers comments in The Bookseller: “I love historical novels and I have seen some really good examples in the last year, but this is the one that just knocked me out. Devlin has the potential to be a marvellous series character – he’s tough and bloody-minded and cunning, but there’s a heart in there somewhere too. He reminds me a bit of Richard Sharpe and I can’t give higher praise than that! Mark Keating writes great action and suspense, but the history is richly drawn as well.” Hodder will publish THE PIRATE DEVLIN in February 2010, and I’m expecting the final manuscript in a couple weeks.
The most fun and surprising reading experience I’ve had in a while is Fiona Neill’s new novel, FRIENDS, LOVERS AND OTHER INDISCRETIONS. I’m certain it will appeal to even more readers than Fiona Neill’s very successful first novel, The Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy. The hardcover was a Top Ten Sunday Times bestseller for seven weeks, over 300,000 copies have sold of the paperback edition, and foreign rights sold in twenty languages. Random House is preparing a major marketing campaign and will publish FRIENDS, LOVERS AND OTHER INDISCRETIONS as a Century hardcover on May 21, 2009. Fiona Neill’s vibrant wit and true-to-life characters never cease to surprise and amuse. The first chapter is the most hilarious example of a couple’s miscommunication that I’ve ever read or seen. Her keen powers of observation and her skill in realistically presenting both male and female points of view brilliantly bring to life the moments that make friendship and love so endlessly intriguing and unpredictable.
Any day now I’m expecting the manuscript of Catherine Sanderson’s debut novel, RENDEZVOUS. Penguin will publish in August 2009. It’s a romantic comedy set in Paris and I’m sure it will be as thoughtful, witty, poignant and delightful as Catherine’s acclaimed memoir, PETITE ANGLAISE, which sold in ten languages and is now a bestselling paperback.
THE BEQUEST is a debut thriller set in Ukraine, Russia, and the UK. It’s based on research covering three centuries of attempts to lay claim the legendary Cossack gold that is reputed to still be unclaimed deep in a London bank vault. A young London lawyer, Kate, is drawn into a ruthless race against time. Robert Kirby submitted the manuscript exclusively to Jane Morpeth and Headline responded with a two-book offer. The first book, THE BEQUEST, will be published in hardcover September 2009 and then six months later in paperback. Anna Shevchenko’s second novel will also be an international thriller. She speaks seven languages, and worked with key government leaders and decision makers in Britain and across the CIS. She has also interpreted for numerous high-level government visits to the UK and senior ministerial meetings at the EU in Brussels.
I’m now about to start reading THE CELEBRITY MOTHER, a new novel by Deborah Wright. I liked the first chapters that I read last year when agent Simon Trewin sold UK rights to Headline. I’m even more eager to read the recently finished manuscript after seeing editor Catherine Cobain’s delighted comments to Deborah: “fabulous”, “utterly compelling”, “truly magical”, “page-turning”. Headline Review will publish in July 2009. The only option publisher is Goldmann in Germany who published Deborah’s previous novel, The History of Lucy’s Love Life in 10.5 Chapters. THE CELEBRITY MOTHER, inspired by a trip Deborah took to India, is a more mature novel about a thirty-five-year-old actress and ex-pop-star who decides to jumpstart her career by adopting a 10-year-old Indian girl.
Non-fiction
HOPS AND GLORY: One Man’s Search for the Beer that Built the British Empire by Pete Brown was sold by James Gill to Macmillan on a proposal and the manuscript is now ready. There’s also a great cover design (pictured left). For the first time in 140 years, a keg of unfermented Burton IPA has been taken to India by canal and tall ship, around the Cape of Good Hope; and the man carrying Britain’s best beer is Pete Brown, Britain’s best beer writer. Weaving first-class travel writing with assured comedy, a raucous history of the hard-partying Raj and a fantastic sense of adventure, “Hops and Glory” is, quite simply, one man’s quest for the beer that built the British Empire. Macmillan will publish in hardcover in June 2009.
THE RUNNING SKY by Tim Dee was sold on proposal in an auction to Jonathan Cape two years ago by our beloved Pat Kavanagh. There was also an auction between US publishers and a deal was done with The Free Press. The manuscript is now delivered and Sarah Ballard who now represents Tim Dee and his editor, Dan Franklin, are amazed by it. There have been many books on the bird-watcher’s obsession, but there has been nothing until THE RUNNING SKY that so effectively restores the primacy of looking, the thrill of watching and thinking about birds. I’m reading it now and am entranced by every sentence. Jonathan Cape/UK and The Free Press/US will publish in Autumn 2009 and there is already a brilliant cover design that shows how different THE RUNNING SKY is from any other book about birds.
Agent James Gill sold the proposal for THE JUNIOR OFFICERS’ READING CLUB by Patrick Hennessey to Penguin in an auction last spring. The manuscript is now delivered and I’m hoping there will be proofs before the London Book Fair. It will be published as an Allen Lane hardcover in June 2009. Patrick Hennessey is Second Captain of the Queen’s Company, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards. Having been deployed to Africa, South East Asia and Bosnia, he has seen action in Iraq and Afghanistan where he was promoted in the field to become the youngest Captain in the British Army. He was later commended for gallantry. He is only 26 years of age. He describes with alarming vividness not only the frenetic violence of Baghdad and Helmand, but also reflects with intelligence and wit upon the nuances, complexities, and dilemmas of a new generation of soldiers caught between a world that needs them and a society that no longer understands them. The title refers to a reading group formed by Patrick and his friends in Iraq in the summer of 2006.
LIFE ASCENDING by Nick Lane was sold on proposal to Profile Books a few years ago and the manuscript is now complete and is as brilliant as agent Caroline Dawnay and publisher Andrew Franklin hoped it would be. Profile publishes in April 2009, and Norton will publish LIFE ASCENDING in the US and Ariel/Planeta will publish in Spain. Profile recently sent out a press release presenting LIFE ASCENDING as “A gripping and lucid account of the ingenuity of nature, Life Ascending is essential reading for everyone who accepts the reality of evolution but is left perplexed by the sheer complexity of life.” In ten chapters renowned biochemist, Nick Lane, explains the origin of life itself, the formation of DNA, the marvel of photosynthesis, the evolution of complex cells, the power of sex, the secret of movement, the perfection of the eye, the reasons for hot blood, the emergence of consciousness, and the evitability of death. There is already advance praise from Matt Ridley: “If Charles Darwin sprang from his grave, I would give him this fine book to bring him up to speed. It’s a breathless bulletin from the accelerating rush of news about the secrets of life on planet earth.”
And Ian Stewart :”Life Ascending is a fascinating and beautifully written account of the great mysteries of life—how it arose, how it works, why things die, how consciousness evolved. It’s a great read, and provides real insight into current scientific thinking about the big evolutionary puzzles without getting tangled up in technicalities. Highly recommended!”
Over my Christmas vacation I was mesmerized by BANGKOK DAYS by Lawrence Osborne. He’s a brilliant new client of Caroline Dawnay who sold UK rights to James Gurbutt/Harvill and Secker. FSG will publish in the US and Adelphi will publish in Italy. BANGKOK DAYS is a passionate, reflective, melancholy love letter to the city that revived Osborne’s faith in adventure and the world. “Thailand inspires such enthralled romanticism that it also invites great cynicism and it is a feat to acknowledge all its complexities and graces, as Osborne does, without ever quite surrendering to them” – Pico Iyer, Los Angeles Times.
TWO UNITED AGENTS’ AUTHORS SHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE!
THE REHEARSAL has sold in ten languages, most recently to Siltala Publishing in Finland. It was wonderful meeting Eleanor Catton in July when she was in England and I loved her reading on the first night of the Edinburgh Book Festival. THE REHEARSAL was published in July by Granta and will be published next summer in the US by Regan Arthur Books (Little, Brown). There have been rave reviews in the British press, especially Justine Jordan’s review in the Guardian: “This astonishing debut novel from young New Zealander Eleanor Catton is a cause for surprise and celebration: smart, playful and self-possessed, it has the glitter and mystery of the true literary original. Though its impulses and methods can only be called experimental, the prose is so arresting, the storytelling so seductive, that wherever the book falls open it’s near-impossible to put down.”
One more prize I was keeping my fingers crossed for was for the 2009 Frank O’Connor Short Story Award, the oldest annual short story prize in the world, to be won by Charlotte Grimshaw. For the second year in a row, she is on the shortlist. Previous winners have included Haruki Murakami, Miranda July, Jhumpa Lahiri and Yiyun Li. Charlotte Grimshaw was chosen for this year’s shortlist above notable names including Booker winner Kazuo Ishiguro, Orange Prize winner Chimanda Ngozi Adiche, veteran short story authors Ali Smith, Mary Gaitskill and James Lasdun and reviewers’ darling Sana Krasikov. SINGULARITY was published earlier this summer by Random House New Zealand with great reviews in the NZ press, and it is now the first of Charlotte Grimshaw’s books to be published by Jonathan Cape in the UK. All of the stories in SINGULARITY (and also in Charlotte Grimshaw’s previous book, OPPORTUNITY) are interconnected and one of them, The Night Book is the first chapter of her next novel. 
Foreign rights to 
Foreign rights to 
I’m settling back into London after three weeks of exploring Peru. In the moments I could find in between archaeological wonders, rough busrides, colourful markets, exotic birds, early waking and early bedtime, I read “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (my journey was nearly as surreal), “The Ancient Civilizations of Peru” (I visited four sites that were earlier than the Incas and Machu Picchu), “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”, and “Half of a Yellow Sun” (maybe my next big vacation will be to Africa). I was tempted to keep traveling to more remote Andean villages, but now I hope 2009 will be a year I read and sell more surprising, beautiful books than ever before! 
The New York Times picks 
Susie Boyt’s enchanting memoir, 
The Irish Times has picked 
I keep telling people that 
