Pericoli, Ryan to S&S
Manhattan Unfurled and Manhattan Within author Matteo Pericoli has sold a new project, presently untitled, on New York window views, to Amanda Murray via Tracy Fisher at William Morris, who sold U.S. rights. The book will capture the city through the eyes of people Pericoli admires, people whose work we know or people whose particular window view will show us a hidden perspective; Pericoli’s b&w drawings will be limited to the window frame and what’s beyond it. Among the people whose views Pericoli has already documented for the project are E.L. Doctorow, the late Saul Steinberg, Steve Martin, Richard Meier, Richard Avedon and David Byrne; the owners of the views will comment on how they feel about what they see, and Pericoli will write an introduction. Planned pub date is spring 2009.
SydnyMiner has acquired Little Girls in Little Boxes author Joan Ryan’s first book in 12 years, called The Water-Giver; Betsy Lerner at Dunow Carlson Lerner sold world rights except U.K. Ryan will chronicle the months spent in the ICU where her son successfully battled a traumatic brain injury from a skateboarding accident. Pub date is spring 2009.
Two for HC
Rakesh Satyal at Harper has acquired world English rights to Javier Calvo’s Mundo Maravilloso (Wonderful World) via Anna Stein at Irene Skolnick. Calvo’s second novel, set in Barcelona’s Gothic quarter, brings together several story lines, the most prominent of which is the text of an imaginary, unpublished thriller by Stephen King. Calvo, a reporter for El Pais, has also translated the works of Coetzee, Foster Wallace, Palahniuk and Lethem (he is Jonathan Lethem’s brother-in-law) for the Spanish-language audience. Harper plans to publish in fall 2008.
Elsewhere within Harper, William Morrow’s David Highfill preempted FoxSports.com analyst DaynPerry’s untitled biography of Reggie Jackson; Sydelle Kramer at Susan Rabiner made the six-figure, world rights deal. Perry will tell the story of the baseball great’s exploits on the field and also describe his pivotal role in changing the game for black players of his time and later. No pub date yet.
YA Preempt
Michelle Frey at Knopf has preempted a debut novel by Christina Meldrum titled Madapple; LauraRennert at Andrea Brown made the six-figure world rights deal. The book’s plot alternates between the isolated existence of a 16-year-old girl in rural Maine, for whom mythology, virgin births and runic symbols are more real than modern life, and her trial for murder. Meldrum, who has a J.D. from Harvard, has worked for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland, and as a law firm litigator. Pub date is summer 2008.
Crown Debuts
Heather Jackson at Crown has preempted a yet-to-be-titled guide by relationship expert Dr. Michelle Callahan from Endeavor’s Rebecca Oliver, who sold world English rights. Callahan’s first book will address the concerns of women who want and need more control over their relationships and the partners they choose. The book will be published in early 2009.
Allison McCabe bought a first novel by Elaine di Rollo titled The Peach Grower’s Almanac; agent Jonathan Lyons sold North American rights on behalf of Jane Conway-Gordon in the U.K. Set in 1850s England, the novel follows twin sisters who find different ways to escape their stifling upbringing and their eccentric father, who wishes them to be curators of his huge personal museum of peculiar artifacts. Chatto will publish in the U.K.
Paperback Auctions
JuliaCheiffetz at Ballantine Trade Paperbacks beat out three other publishers in a three-day auction for Ms. Cahill for Congress, by Reno, Nev., schoolteacher Tierney Cahill and Linden Gross. Agent TedWeinstein made the world English deal. This memoir, of a single mother who ran for Congress on a dare from her sixth-grade students and won the primary, is the basis for the DreamWorks movie Class Act starring Halle Berry. A fall 2008 pub date is planned, to coincide with the scheduled film release date as well as back-to-school and election seasons.
Hilary Rubin at St. Martin’s Griffin acquired world English rights, at auction, to Tamar Yellin’s TheGenizah at the House of Shepher, via the Toby Press. The book, which Toby published in hardcover in 2005, received the 2007 Sami Rohr Prize for Best Work of Jewish Fiction from the Jewish Book Council; SMP will also publish the paperback of Yellin’s novel-in-stories, Tales of the Ten Tribes, coming in hardcover next year from Toby.
History of Walls
Becky Kraemer at Melville House has acquired world rights to Berlin-based journalist Mark Ehrman’s Border Walls: The Never-Ending Story of Physical Barriers and the Human Tide, via agent Paul Bresnick. To explain the contemporary obsession with building walled borders and to ascertain whether this is effective or worthwhile, Ehrman will trace the history of border walls, from Jericho to Hadrian’s Wall, the Great Wall of China and the issue of the U.S.-Mexican border. Pub date is set for fall 2009, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.
