Deals

Masha Hamilton rejoins editor Fred Ramey, who published her first novel at Blue Hen/Putnam, in his new venture, Unbridled Books, for her second novel, THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US, in which an American journalist working in Lebanon and Israel loses her British colleague and lover in a desert ambush and is plagued by the desire for revenge against the combatants who killed him. North American rights sold by agent Marly Rusoff.

Novelist Pat Conroy’s expresses his passion for storytelling and cooking in THE PAT CONROY COOKBOOK: The Recipes of My Life, a combination cookbook and memoir of good food, good company and vintage Conroy stories from his beloved South to Paris, Rome, Bangkok and beyond, with recipes contributed by Suzanne Williamson Pollak, to Nan A. Talese/Doubleday in a major deal, for publication in late 2004, North American rights, by Marly Rusoff.

Founding member of the famed Actors Studio Eli Wallach’s memoir THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND ME, about his early days in Brooklyn and his over 50-year acting career in New York, Hollywood, and Europe, from the man whose approach to acting hugely influenced Brando, Newman and Monroe, to Andre Bernard at Harcourt, in a good deal, by Marly Rusoff (world, excl. German).

A comic first novel that stars a female foreign correspondent in Africa who goes home to Los Angeles to have her baby–and has to try to reconcile the two vastly contrasting worlds–was bought by Shaye Areheart for her eponymous imprint at Harmony. It’s called “LATCH” by California-born Maria Lennon, who was educated in Switzerland and England and worked in Italian TV before returning home. World rights, excluding German, were sold by agent Marly Rusoff.
(Title changed to MAKING IT UP AS I GO ALONG)

Maria Lennon’s first novel LATCH, in which a thirty-eight year-old foreign correspondent, pregnant by her cheating surgeon boyfriend, returns home from war-torn Sierra Leone to L.A. where she throws herself into unlikely new friendships with a group of breast-feeding Hollywood wives and sees her past come back to haunt her when her two neatly separated worlds collide, to Shaye Areheart for her imprint at Harmony, in a good deal, by Marly Rusoff (world, except German).
(Title changed to MAKING IT UP AS I GO ALONG)

Author of the bestselling THE KITCHEN BOY Robert Alexander’s new work of historical fiction RASPUTIN’S DAUGHTER, inspired by a historical document in the author’s collection, in which the eldest child of the charismatic Russian holy man recounts the last days and murder of her father, to Jane von Mehren at Viking Penguin, for six figures, by Marly Rusoff (world).

Journalist Michael Zielenziger’s SHUTTING OUT THE SUN, explaining the mystery of Japan’s inability to recover from a decade-long recession by looking at social indicators–such as the tremendous number of Japanese women who choose to buy luxury handbags and designer clothes instead of marrying, plus its troubling rise of depression and alcoholism, growing suicide rate, and the more than one million young adults who shut themselves in their own rooms and have chosen to opt out completely from a society that got rich but has yet to place a value on individual identity, to Nan A. Talese for her imprint at Doubleday, by Marly Rusoff (world).

BEAUTIFUL INEZ, by critically acclaimed novelist Bart Schneider, is the story of the lovely and talented Inez, a physical beauty, violinist of prodigious talent, and wife of San Francisco attorney Jake Roseman (the protagonist of Schneider’s last novel Secret Love). After the birth of her second child, Inez becomes possessed by a quiet engine that drives her toward annihilation. Set in San Francisco in 1962, BEAUTIFUL INEZ begins as a story of family and failed marriage, but, as Inez falls in love with a younger woman, it becomes a passion play of love and deception. World English Rights sold Shaye Areheart for the Shaye Areheart imprint at Harmony/Random.

Pocket Books has acquired world publishing rights to two new novels by Lisa Tucker, the critically acclaimed bestselling author of THE SONG READER, published in trade paperback by Pocket’s Downtown Press imprint in May 2003, and SHOUT DOWN THE MOON, coming in April 2004. The first as yet untitled book will be published in 2005 as a Downtown Press hardcover, to be followed by a trade edition. The acquisition was made by Pocket Senior Editor Amy Pierpont in a significant deal negotiated by Marly Rusoff of Marly Rusoff Literary Agency. marly@rusoffagency.com.
THE SONG READER, Tucker’s debut novel about two sisters growing up together in a small Missouri town – one of them with the ability to song read, the unusual skill she uses to help people with their problems by analyzing the lyrics to songs they have stuck in their heads — received rave reviews and foreign rights have been sold to Italy, United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. The British edition will be published by Simon & Schuster UK in early Spring 2004. In addition, first serial rights were sold to Seventeen Magazine and large print to Thorndike. Publishers Weekly gave THE SONG READER a starred review and called it “achingly tender… [an] intoxicating debut.”
“Lisa Tucker’s talent has not gone unnoticed by reviewers, fans, and booksellers alike. We look forward to publishing Lisa for years to come to great success,” said Louise Burke, Executive Vice President and Publisher of Pocket Books.
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster. Simon & Schuster, part of the entertainment operation of Viacom Inc., is a global leader in the field of general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for consumers of all ages, across all printed, electronic, and multimedia formats. Its divisions include the Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, Simon & Schuster New Media, Simon & Schuster Online, and international companies in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit our website at www.simonsays.com

Psychoanalyst Salman Akhtar’s THINGS: Physical Objects of Our Desire, exploring the human attachment to objects during all phases of life, from childhood through adolescence to middle and old age, to Shaye Areheart at Harmony, in a nice deal, by Marly Rusoff (NA).