Alabama native Daniel Wallace is the man of the hour in Chapel Hill, N.C., now that the big screen adaptation of his 1988 novel Big Fish is in theaters and garnering Oscar buzz. Branch's Chapel Hill Bookshop found that so many customers were requesting the Algonquin hardcover edition of Wallace's book (despite the fact that there is a paperback tie-in edition from Penguin) that the store bought up the remainder of Big Fish's original 13,000-copy $17.95 hardcover printing—which the store is selling for $35 each.
Last week, Branch's hosted a book signing party for Wallace on the eve of the Tim Burton film's premiere. More than 200 people showed up and the store sold 100 copies of the hardcover.
"Daniel has been a favorite customer of ours ever since we opened just over a year ago," Kate Branch, owner of the 4,000-sq.-ft. store, told PW. "He lives nearby, and we had him in for a signing last spring for The Watermelon King [Houghton Mifflin], his third novel. But we wanted to do something special for him when the movie opened here. He was agreeable, of course, and suggested Algonquin as a co-host."
Algonquin marketing director Craig Popelars said the movie has resulted in a "significant" increase in demand for the second edition hardcover. Kathy Pories, Wallace's editor for Big Fish, added, "Although a book and the movie made from it are never the same, and there are elements of the movie that aren't in the novel, the movie is incredibly faithful to the book in capturing the essentials of its father-son relationship and the whole curve of the father's grandiose storytelling process. But what's been so amazing to me is to follow a book all the way from its incoming manuscript to its ultimate Hollywood realization."
Though Wallace had only minimal involvement in adapting the script, he does appear briefly in the film as an economics professor.
