Clark Closes Double
Agent William Clark, at William Clark Associates, just closed two notable deals. In the first, he sold U.S. and Canadian rights to Jake Adelstein’s nonfiction book The Last Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underground to Tim O’Connell at Pantheon. (Adelstein’s first book, 2010’s Tokyo Vice, is also with Pantheon.) The author is a journalist who grew up in the Midwest before moving to Japan, where he began covering crime for a Japanese paper. The first American to work that beat, Adelstein, who was recently profiled in the New Yorker, has emerged as one of the foremost authorities on organized crime in Japan. The new book, about a former gang boss, is, as Clark explained, “a singular, in-depth, occasionally funny, often dark, but nonetheless inspiring, tale.” A U.K. auction for the book was in progress at press time.
Clark also sold Anne Somerset’s Queen Anne: The Politics of Passion to Vicky Wilson at Knopf. Wilson took U.S. rights in the deal, which Clark brokered in collaboration with Ed Victor. The biography of the 18th-century British monarch delivers a different view of the figure who, Clark noted, has historically been depicted as “a weak ruler.” Somerset, who Clark said relied on a number of unpublished sources, instead offers a picture of “a woman whose unshakable commitment to duty enabled her to overcome private tragedy and painful disabilities, setting her kingdom on the path to greatness.” The book was published earlier this year in the U.K. by HarperCollins.
47 North Sinks Its Teeth into Cameron
Josh Getzler, at Hannigan Salky Getzler, closed a three-book deal for multi-Edgar nominee Dana Cameron with David Pomerico at Amazon’s 47 North imprint. Pomerico took world rights—Getzler is holding onto film rights. The deal will launch a new series set in a world known as the Fangborn, where people turn into creatures like vampires and werewolves. (Getzler said he pitched it as “Dan Brown with fangs.”) The heroine is an archeologist named Zoe Miller who, Getzler said, has a “dark side” that is “clearly something more.” The first book is called Seven Kinds of Hell, and 47 North has the title scheduled for March 2013. Also, as part of the deal, Cameron, who has written myriad short stories for mystery magazines and book collections (and who also wrote the Emma Fielding mystery series for Avon from 2001 through 2006), will release three stories featuring Zoe Miller. Getzler said the stories will run about 10,000 words and will “round out the Fangborn backstory and other characters”; they will be published each fall, with the first appearing in September 2013.
Page to Stage
Meg Federico’s 2009 memoir, Welcome to the Departure Lounge, may be headed to the Great White Way. Random House foreign rights director Denise Cronin, working on behalf of Canadian agent Carolyn Swayze of Carolyn Swayze Literary, sold the stage adaptation rights to producers Jean Cheever and Tom Polum. (The pair recently mounted the musical The Toxic Avenger at Houston’s Alley Theater.) In the book, which RH published in the States, Federico, a journalist, chronicles caring for her aging and eccentric mother, as well as her mother’s boyfriend, who has Alzheimer’s. PW gave the book a starred review, calling it “by turns sad and terribly funny.”
