Deals

Evelina Chao’s THE RIVER OF YEARS, a memoir of a Chinese American woman’s belated journey to her family’s home in Beijing with her immigrant mother in search of a connection to her heritage and an understanding of her often unfathomable mother, to Diane Reverand at St. Martin’s, by Marly Rusoff.
(Published as YEH, YEH’S HOUSE)

Lee Boudreaux at Random House signed for two new books by Arthur Phillips, author of “Prague,” a critically acclaimed novel that is still selling strongly in trade paperback.
The first of the two books, which she bought from agent Marly Rusoff for world rights, is an untitled book about an Egyptologist in the 1920s whose life is ruined when he desperately pretends to have found a royal tomb to boost his career. “It’s witty, inventive and brilliantly constructed,” said Boudreaux.
Random’s Claire Tisne is handling foreign rights.
(October 18, 2003 – The title of the first novel will be THE EGYPTOLOGIST)

In WHY DO THEY ACT THAT WAY AND WHAT YOU SHOULD DO ABOUT IT, nationally renowned psychologist and media expert David Walsh, Ph.D., explains what happens to the brain in adolescence, giving readers the latest neuroscience research in easy-to-understand terms and providing parents with strategies and tips for helping kids through this troubling time. North American rights to Leslie Meredith of the Free Press, in an enthusiastic preempt, by Marly Rusoff.

Three foreign sales of Adam Langer’s CROSSING CALIFORNIA, a hilarious first novel, set in a primarily Jewish neighborhood of Chicago where classes are separated by California Avenue, telling the stories of three families with teenage children; to Alexander Fest at Rowohlt, in an enthusiastic pre-emptive offer, by Jacqueline LeDonne at Marly Rusoff & Assoc. (German language); to Prometheus/Bert Bakker, in another enthusiastic pre-emptive offer, by Lisa Queen at Marly Rusoff & Assoc (Dutch); and to Otava Publishers, in a third enthusiastic pre-emptive offer, also by Lisa Queen (Finnish).

PRAGUE by Arthur Phillips — German rights sold — Arthur Phillips’s PRAGUE, which depicts an intentionally lost “Lost Generation” as it follows five American expats who come to Budapest in the early 1990s to seek their fortune, to Random House’s BTB imprint, in a six-figure EURO preemptive offer, by Schoffling & Co, hardbound publisher of Prague in Germany (German language paperback).

AND SHE WAS is Cindy Dyson’s debut novel in which a loose, blond cocktail waitress whose life is mired in a trail of easy men and endless parties, follows a fisherman to a remote boomtown in the Aleutian Islands where long ago, three Aleut women began a secret history of killings that still clings to the foggy hills. North American rights to Claire Wachtel VP & Executive Editor Wm Morrow in a pre-empt, in a good deal by Marly Rusoff.

Turkish writer Elif Shafak’s first novel in English THE SAINT OF INCIPIENT INSANITIES, about a group of young people, mostly foreigners, living on a university campus in Boston, and their never-ending quest for happiness and belonging, to John Glusman at Farrar, Straus, in a pre-empt, by Marly Rusoff (NA).
(Elif Shafak’s previous novels have won many awards in Turkey.)

This new novel by highly regarded poet and novelist Judy Goldman tells the story of a mother who wakes up one morning to find the police at her door to arrest her only son -a star athlete and honor student- for murder. MINE is the story of a woman who is so protective of her son -over-involved, suffocating at times- that the only way out for him is to disappoint her profoundly. And he does.
World rights to Claire Wachtel VP & Executive Editor Wm Morrow in a nice deal by Marly Rusoff.
(Sales notices appeared on Publishers Marketplace May 14, 2003 and Publishers Weekly)
(The title of this novel was changed by the publisher to EARLY LEAVING)

Daniel Hayes’s debut novel, ONUS, a quirky story about an oddly endearing struggling writer who decides to enact a fantasy of kidnapping an editor at a major publishing house, sold to Anne Czarniecki at Graywolf, in a nice deal, by Marly Rusoff (world English). marly@rusoffagency.com
(Title changed on publication to TEARJERKER)

by Adam Langer is set in Rogers Park, a primarily Jewish neighborhood of Chicago in which classes are separated by California Avenue. Not only class boundaries are traversed in this brilliant and often hilarious first novel but life’s boundaries -from Bat Mitzvah, graduation, loss of virginity, assimilation, marriage, divorce, even death — as the stories of three families, all with teenage children, are told. Early readers have called CROSSING CALIFORNIA “a Jewish Corrections” while others have opined that it reads like episodes of the Simpson’s written by Phillip Roth.
Adam Langer is a playwright and the fiction editor of Book Magazine. This is his first novel. A six figure preemptive offer by Cindy Spiegel of Riverhead/Putnam purchased World English rights from Marly Rusoff. Lisa Queen at IMG will sell translation rights. — April 29, 2003
(Sales notices appeared on Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Weekly)