McGuigan Closes on deWitt and Karo
After a heated auction with five other bidders, Ecco editorial director Lee Boudreaux bought U.S. rights to Patrick deWitt's new novel, The Sisters Brothers. Peter McGuigan at Foundry Literary + Media brokered the deal, and he described the book, about hit men brothers, as "There Will Be Blood meets Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Part of the fervor for the book certainly grew out of the strong critical response deWitt received for his debut, Ablutions: Notes for a Novel (HMH, 2009), a New York Times editor's choice that the paper called "sometimes poetic, sometimes terrible, sometimes funny, often all three at once." McGuigan also closed, with coagent Jerry Kalajian at IPF, film rights to the book, which were bought by actor John C. Reilly. U.K. rights have been sold to Sara Holloway at Granta, and in deWitt's native Canada, Sarah MacLachlan at House of Anansi has rights.
In a second deal, McGuigan sold North American rights at auction to comedian Aaron Karo's YA novel, Lexapros & Cons, to Wesley Adams at Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. The book follows an OCD-afflicted teen named Chuck Taylor who dons a variety of colored Converse sneakers to match his changing mood, as he prepares to impress the girl of his dreams during any OCD kid's nightmare—the senior camping trip.
Sterling Goes to ‘Sonoma'
Sterling has closed a five-book deal with Dr. Connie Guttersen, author of the 2005 Meredith Books bestseller, The Sonoma Diet. That book, which offered healthy meals inspired by the California region of its title, has, according to Sterling, more than 600,000 copies in print. The New Sonoma Diet, the first title in the deal, is scheduled for January 2011 and will go to press for an initial 250,000 copies; it will, per Sterling, "incorporate the evolution of how nutrition, health and wellness affect our overall sense of wellbeing." Guttersen is a registered dietician with a culinary background. Heidi Krupp, of Krupp Kommunications, brokered the deal.
Glick Does Cookbook Doubleheader
Dystel & Goderich's Stacey Glick just closed two world rights deals on two different cookbooks with Justin Schwartz at John Wiley. In a six-figure deal, Glick sold Allison Fishman's tentatively titled The Skinny Home Cook, a collection of recipes from the TV chef (Lifetime's Cook Yourself Thin and TLC's Home Made Simple) and founder of the Wooden Spoon cooking school. The book, scheduled for spring 2011, is focused on low-calorie family favorites. The second deal was for a collection based on the Web site goodbite.com, called Good Bite's Weeknight Meals: Delicious Made Easy. The site features video recipe demonstrations by a number of popular food bloggers, and the cookbook will bring together a mix of those recipes to, as Glick said, "demonstrate a range of styles and flavors." Wiley is planning a fall 2011 publication.
