If there were a soundtrack to the Frankfurt Book Fair, it would include a little ditty called "The Ballad of the Big Book," and its refrain would go something like this:
Is there a "big book"?
Uh, oh, there's no "big book"
Better find a "big book"
What's Frankfurt without a "big book?"
In recent years, the answer has been: well, Frankfurt. There's no question that the Fair isn't quite the deal-making hub it used to be, thanks to the ease of communication—email, cell phones and lots of other international events. Yes, there is still lots and lots of rights activity at the Messe, but deals don't necessarily have to be hammered out in a foreign city in six days. Still, the song remains the same: if there's not a big book at Frankfurt, well, then, publishers, scouts and agents will just have to anoint one.
This year's contender: a 900+-page manuscript titled The Furies written in French by American Jonathan Littell, son of author Robert Littell. Shopped by tony British agent Andrew Nurnberg, the novel is a dense and disturbing (say both those who love it and those who hate it) look inside the mind of a WWII SS officer speaking frankly about atrocities. A German publisher had already ponied up hundreds of thousands of euros for it (a huge sum in that market); the original edition has already sold 200,000 copies in France. It is currently in the hands of every American bigwig from FSG to Harper to Knopf—"a very important book," say some who have read it; "sensationalist crap," says at least one other.
Just who in the U.S. will end up being given the privilege of paying into the seven figures for the chance to publish the prize is still in question, and will not be resolved right away; in an unusual move, Nurnberg has asked that all bids be held until at least October 12, to give everybody a chance to read the lengthy material, submit a letter to the author about why he/she deserves to be the publisher—and, surely, to further heighten the big book suspense. And while I could make my predictions about where it will end up—hint: there will surely be a certain Indo-British editor involved—I'm not convinced, in the end, that it matters.
What's important, of course, is that, despite the usual griping that there is no big book at Frankfurt and there doesn't need to be a big book at Frankfurt, Frankfurt has, at least this year, found—or created—its Big Book. Never mind that the last big Frankfurt book that anybody can remember the title of was Memoirs of a Geisha more than a decade ago; fairgoers this year got what they always come for: a little excitement, a lotta buzz—and maybe, just maybe, a book that will break out, will "work," will actually sell.
No wonder we've got that old Frankfurt song stuck in our heads.
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