Schiff to Little, Brown
Pulitzer Prize—winner Stacy Schiff is moving to Little, Brown for her next book, Cleopatra; Michael Pietsch bought world rights from Eric Simonoff at Janklow & Nesbit. Cleopatra will examine the life of the woman whose brains, not beauty, determined her influence, covering the queen's early life in Alexandria, her affair with Caesar, the Alexandrian War, her nine-year affair with Marc Antony and her doomed final year. Supporting characters in Cleopatra's life include Herod and Octavius. Schiff, who received the Pulitzer for Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), is most recently the author of A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France and the Birth of America, published in 2005 by Holt. Cleopatra is scheduled for publication in 2010.
Elsewhere at LB, Judy Clain emerged the winner of a five-round auction for two books by Katie Crouch, Girls in Trucks and Men and Dogs; Rob McQuilkin at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin sold North American rights for mid-six figures. Crouch's debut novel-in-stories traces the uneven fortunes of a Charleston girl anxious to shake the bonds of good family and Southern womanhood, following her life up North through a gauntlet of magazine jobs that don't pay and love affairs that don't nourish. The novel Men and Dogs will focus on the sometimes charmed world of Charleston from the perspective of an ageing, too-handsome veterinarian whose life has begun to crumble around him. Crouch finished her M.F.A. at Columbia in 2005; Girls is tentatively scheduled for February 2008.
Viking Keeps Philbrick
Wendy Wolf has acquired Nathaniel Philbrick's next book, The Last Stand: The Battle of the Little Big Horn; Stuart Krichevsky sold North American rights. This is Philbrick's fourth book with Viking and follows his bestseller Mayflower. Last Stand will examine the archetypal battle of the American West. Philbrick won the National Book Award for In the Heart of the Sea (2000). No pub date for the new book yet.
Thrillers to Harper
Lane Zachary and Todd Shuster at Zachary Shuster Harmsworth just closed a two-book deal at auction for a proposed series of novels by Peter de Jonge; Harper's Claire Wachtel won world rights. The books will follow a young NYPD detective; in the first novel in the series, It Takes a Lot of Heart to Play This Game, she investigates the rape and murder of a 19-year-old NYU student. De Jonge is a contributor to the New York Times Magazine and has also collaborated on three bestselling novels with James Patterson, most recently this summer's Beach Road. A spring 2008 publication for Heart is tentative.
The Briefing
Betsy Lerner at Dunow Carlson Lerner has sold Thirteen and a Day author Mark Oppenheimer's new book, Fighting Words: Saving Oratory and Debate in America; Norton's Amy Cherry bought North American rights. A former debate champion, Oppenheimer will write a cultural critique of American speech encompassing every arena in which words still matter.... Da Capo's Marnie Cochran has acquired a new book by Michael Crider, author of The Guy's Guide to Surviving Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the First Year of Fatherhood and The Guy's Guide to Dating, Getting Hitched, and Surviving the First Year of Marriage. This one is a yet-untitled work on separation anxiety, exploring the simultaneous desire to help your kids grow up and hold on to them; Frank Weimann at Literary Group International sold world rights and Da Capo will publish in fall 2007.
