Smith Takes a ‘Honeymoon’ at Other Press
Judith Gurewich at Other Press took world rights to Dinitia Smith’s novel The Honeymoon. The book, Other Press said, is about George Eliot and her marriage, later in life, to a younger man. The publisher added that Smith explores the “near-tragic consequences” of the union for the 19th-century author. Smith was represented in the deal by Joy Harris, who has an eponymous shingle.

It’s a ‘New World’ for Butman and Targett at LB

For Little, Brown, Vanessa Mobley acquired world rights, at auction, to John Butman and Simon Targett’s New World, Inc. The nonfiction book, which uproots established notions about the founding of the United States, was sold by Kneerim, Williams & Bloom agents Ike Williams and Katherine Flynn. Butman is a bestselling author (Trading Up and Breaking Out), and Targett is a former editor at the Financial Times. As Flynn explained, the book introduces “characters absent from traditional founding narratives... and explores the values they imparted to us.” These characters, Flynn said, range from “risk-taking merchants” to “daring soldiers,” and also include “the ordinary people who... risked their lives to settle the New World.”

Norton Enters Slouka’s ‘Labyrinth’
In a four-book deal, Norton’s Jill Bialosky took North American rights to Mark Slouka’s memoir, Labyrinth of the Heart. The other titles in the deal, which was brokered by Bill Clegg at the Clegg Agency, include a new short story collection called Dominion; reprint rights to Slouka’s debut collection, Lost Lake; and reprint rights to his debut novel, God’s Fool. Slouka, a contributing editor at Harper’s and a Guggenheim fellow, explores the unraveling of his family in the memoir. Norton elaborated, saying the book is “the story of a broken immigrant family as well as a meditation on mental illness, the catharsis of writing fiction, World War II, and the inheritance of memory.”

Page to Screen
Mary Kubica’s novel The Good Girl, published by Mira in August 2014, has been optioned by production company Anonymous Content (Winter’s Bone and True Detective). PW’s starred review of the novel, which is about an art teacher from a wealthy Chicago family who goes missing, compared the book to Gone Girl and said it features a plot in which “nothing turns out as expected.” According to Mira, The Good Girl has sold over 100,000 copies to date.

Briefs
Laurie Wilson sold world rights to her currently untitled biography of sculptor Louise Nevelson to Elizabeth Keene at Thames & Hudson. Nevelson is one of the most celebrated sculptors of the 20th century, and the book, which Jacques de Spoelberch at JdeS Associates represented, is currently set for fall 2016.