frankfurt rights list 2013

INCLUDING SELECT TITLES ON BEHALF OF:
IG PUBLISHING
MILKWEED EDITIONS
FRANKFURT RIGHTS LIST 2013
115 W. 29th Street, Third Floor
New York, NY 10001
Ph: (917) 261-7550
chalbergsussman.com
[email protected]
RECENT & UPCOMING
2
Ezekel Alan, DISPOSABLE PEOPLE
NA/Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
Self-Published
Allison Amend, OTHER ISLANDS
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday (MS available Sept 2015)
Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
2013 Regional Winner of the Commonwealth Book Prize
Inspired by minor historical figures Frances and Ainslie Conway,
who Amend supposes spied for the U.S. during the several years
they were on the Galapagos Islands surrounding the Second
World War, Other Islands is the story of a woman whose path
ventures far from her native Minnesota, whose journey is
emblematic of the whole of the women’s suffrage movement, and
who plays a major, if unrecorded, role in the turning point of the
war. Like Middlesex and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier &
Clay, a modern epic that examines how those whom history has
neglected to record have been shaped by, and in turn helped
form, modern America.
Hailed in the author’s native Jamaica as “brilliant and often
innovative…reminiscent of the work of Kurt Vonnegut…a
masterpiece of searing memories [written] with an intensity that
astonishes” (The Jamaica Observer), this daring and original selfpublished debut novel is a compelling meditation on a childhood
beset by fear, violence, and poverty.
Kenneth Lovelace is a fortysomething consultant haunted by dark
memories of his childhood home in rural 1970s Jamaica. After a
string of failed relationships, Kenneth traces both his own
experiences and those of his friends and family—vivid stories of
children left to fend for themselves or worse—in an attempt to come
to terms with his past. What emerges is an unconventional
narrative—interwoven with poetry, letters, drawings, diary entries,
and stories within stories—that brims with mischief and adventure,
sex and prejudice, evil spirits, adversities, and black humor.
With its energetic, visceral prose and charmingly discursive
structure, laced with a nod to the absurd, Disposable People reads
like the love child of Junot Diaz and 19th-century novelist Laurence
Sterne—which is to say, it is a true original.
Ezekel Alan is a Jamaican consultant working in Asia.
Allison Amend is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop,
author of the novel A Nearly Perfect Copy (Nan A. Talese); the
Independent Publisher’s Award-winning short story collection
Things That Pass for Love; and the novel Stations West, which was
a finalist for the 2011 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature and the
Oklahoma Book Award. Fluent in French, Italian, and Spanish, she
teaches creative writing at Lehman College.
Praise for A Nearly Perfect Copy:
"Clever, wry ... Amend makes her characters immediately real,
depicting their complicated desires and decisions in a highly
enjoyable, nearly perfect novel." —Publishers Weekly,
starred, boxed review
3
Caroline Bock, BEFORE MY EYES
St. Martin's Press; February 2014 (galley available)
Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
Natalie Brown, THE LOVEBIRD
Doubleday; June 18, 2013
Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
"Over a stifling Labor Day weekend, fate hurls three damaged
young people together in a stark and shattering chain of events
that rips the idea of a ‘love triangle’ into tattered shreds. An
impassioned and moving testimony to the need for gun control.”
—Elizabeth Wein, author of Code Name Verity
“In vibrant, colorful language that leaps off the page, Brown paints
her winsome heroine’s coming-of-age with compassion and
affection in this lush, compelling tale.” –Booklist
An intimate and intense YA novel about the dark heart of middle
class adolescence, Before My Eyes intertwines the lives of three
troubled young people: dreamy, poetic Claire, 17, who has spent
the last few months taking care of her six-year-old sister in the wake
of their mother’s stroke; awkward, distracted Max, also 17, the son
of a self-absorbed state senator; and lonely and obsessive Barkley,
21, who works alongside Max and befriends Claire online under
the name “Brent.” No one realizes that Barkley is suffering from
paranoid schizophrenia—until the voice in Barkley’s head orders
him to take out his gun. Authentic, immediate, and powerful,
Before My Eyes captures a moment when possibilities should be
opening up—and instead, everything is almost destroyed.
Praise for Caroline Bock’s debut YA novel LIE:
“Smart…painfully believable." –Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Devastatingly insightful…” –Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Caroline Bock is a graduate of Syracuse University, where she
studied creative writing with Raymond Carver, and the City College
of New York, where she earned an MFA in fiction.
“The Lovebird is a compassionate and inviting novel about
loneliness and heartbreak, finding a place to belong, and what we
will do to protect the things we love. Brown evokes great emotion
with her small and perfect details..” —Jennifer Close, author of Girls
in White Dresses
One fateful day, charismatic Latin professor Simon Mellinkoff
invites fluish Margie to take a nap in his office, where she first
learns that animals the world over are suffering, and also where
first she becomes Simon’s “warm armful.” A year later, Margie is
the leader of a small animal rights activist group. Facing
prosecution from the Federal Government for alleged acts of
domestic terrorism, she absconds to the Crow Indian reservation
where an indigenous family gives her asylum. Against a backdrop
teeming with the mysteries of the natural world, Margie makes lifechanging discoveries about the connections between humans and
animals, as well as her own place as a motherless child on Mother
Earth. Margie Fitzgerald is a wholly original, lovable protagonist
with an engaging, vibrant voice bubbling with poignancy, humor,
pathos, and beauty.
Natalie Brown has degrees in Literature from the University of
California at San Diego and in English and Native American
Studies from Montana State University.
4
Kristin Waterfield Duisberg, AFTER
Engine Books; February 2014 (galley available)
Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
Tiffany Hawk, LOVE ME ANYWAY
Thomas Dunne; May 7, 2013
Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
A heart-wrenching novel about a marriage tested by illness and
long-buried secrets, the fear of abandoning those we love, and the
bond between mother and child.
“Hawk’s excellent debut novel follows the careers of two young
flight attendants. Long ago our pop culture assigned to the
stewardess a certain sexual mystique that film and TV depictions
rarely, if ever, transcend. Hawk … beautifully destroys the
stereotype. Love Me Anyway is one of those rare books that make
us look and actually see an entire group of people for the first
time.”—Jim Gavin, The Rumpus
Nina Baldwin, dutiful wife and devoted mother, discovers a lump in
her breast. Her fears soon confirmed by a team of cancer
specialists, Nina turns to her husband, Martin, for support. But
Martin—a cardiologist with a staunch clinical demeanor—is
incapable of connecting with Nina emotionally, instead focusing on
facts, statistics, and probable outcomes. Having grown up in Berlin
during WWII as the child of Nazi-enablers, Martin feels
tremendous guilt over his father’s actions and unresolved
resentment towards his mother, who ultimately saved him by
sending him away. The more Martin retreats into himself and keeps
secrets from Nina, the more she feels the need to create secrets of
her own. Driven by a complex mix of emotions—including
resentment over Martin’s absence and the pulsing fear that her
cancer, now in remission, will someday return—Nina reaches for a
previously unimaginable escape, one that threatens the sanctity of
her marriage and family.
Praise for Kristin Waterfield Duisberg’s The Good Patient:
“Electrifying in its unfeigned candor, harrowing in its unnerving
vulnerability.” Booklist (starred review)
Kristin Waterfield Duisberg is the author of the critically acclaimed
novel The Good Patient. She is a graduate of Bowdoin College
and the creative writing program at Boston University.
“As irresistible as a non-stop flight to Paris.” –Caroline Leavitt
“A fascinating snapshot of an industry seldom explored in fiction.”
--Publisher’s Weekly
Shy twenty-something Emily Crane befriends party girl and fellow
flight attendant KC, who encourages Emily to shed her mousy
image. Soon enough Emily finds love in the form of an older,
married co-worker named Tien, a father to two young girls. As
Emily and Tien become more deeply entangled, KC grows
distraught. Her fun-loving exterior conceals the real reason she
became a flight attendant: to find the father who abandoned her.
Just as KC attempts to put her family back together, she must watch
Emily tear someone else's apart. Ultimately, they both must decide
what love and family are truly worth. Along with the complexities
of love and friendship, the novel captures in glorious detail the life
of a flight attendant at the dawn of the 21st century.
A former flight attendant, Tiffany Hawk has an MFA in creative
writing from UC Riverside.
5
Linda Hervieux, FORGOTTEN: The Untold Story of the Only
African-American Combat Unit at D-Day
Harper; Fall 2015 (MS available October 2014; proposal avail.)
Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
A compelling true account of war, race, class, courage, and valor.
The 320th Anti-Aircraft Barrage Balloon Battalion was an AfricanAmerican combat unit that played a key role in the D-Day
landings—flying an aerial curtain of enormous silver blimps over
Omaha and Utah beaches to protect fellow soldiers from low-flying
German planes. Forgotten revives the story of the men of the
320th—their origins, personal histories, and paths into an army
divided by race. Focusing on four soldiers, Forgotten traces their
stories from barrage balloon training school to a terrifying voyage
across the ocean aboard the British Ocean liner Aquitania (once
described as the “Rolls Royce of the sea”), to the surprisingly warm
welcome from the British, to their heroic D-Day landing and the
inspiring lofting of the balloons above the beaches of Normandy.
Subject to terrible racism at home and in the military, and denied
their rightful military honors to this day, the 320th finds their proper
place in history with Forgotten.
For readers of history, World War II buffs, and anyone
who loves narrative nonfiction, Forgotten is a must-read, sure to
take its place alongside such popular and classic works like
Stephen Ambrose’s Band of Brothers, Antony Beevor’s D-Day, and
Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken.
Linda Hervieux has worked on staff as a reporter and editor at
several newspapers, including the New York Daily News. Her work
has appeared in the New York Times, International Herald
Tribune, and the Daily News. She lives in France.
Bunmi Laditan, THE HONEST TODDLER: A Child’s Guide to
Parenting
Scribner; May 7, 2013
Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
Rights sold: Canada (HarperCollins); UK (Orion); France
(Larousse); Germany (Ullstein); Lithuania (Alma Littera); Romania
(Editora Rao); Russia (Eksmo); Spain (DeBolsillo/Random House
Mondadori)
**Named one of Time Magazine's 140 Best Twitter Feeds of 2013** “Laditan writes from the perspective of a small but self-confident,
demanding, juice-seeking young person, and for readers who
know such a person, it’s awfully funny.”—The Boston Globe
An irreverent, laugh-out-loud funny parenting guide from The
Honest Toddler, whose unchecked sense of entitlement and
undeniable charm have captivated over 265,000 Twitter followers.
In this antidote to heavy-handed advice books written by “experts”
like Chua (The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother) and Druckerman
(Bringing Up Bébé), the Internet’s most infamous tot turns a sharp
eye to a wide range of subjects, including toddler entertainment,
playdate etiquette, and meal preparation. With bracing honesty
and sweet confidence, The Honest Toddler tackles everything from
preferred toddler foods (cake, crackers, and juice), sleep training
methods (none). The result is a parenting guide like no other.
Bunmi Laditan is a regular contributor to Parenting.com,
Mothering.com, iVillage.com, and The Huffington Post. She lives
with her family outside of Montreal. The Honest Toddler is based
on her youngest child.
6
Elena Passarello, LET ME CLEAR MY THROAT
Sarabande Books; October 9, 2012
Translation/UK/Film/TV/Audio: C&S
“In a brilliant combination of rigorous study and conversational
tone, Passarello has created a remarkably entertaining and
thought-provoking look at the human voice and all of its myriad
functions and sounds.... A wonderful collection for any reader.
Highly recommended.”—Library Journal, Starred Review
“The beauty of Elena Passarello’s voice is that it’s so confidently its
own. I began randomly with her essay wondering what the space
aliens will make of 'Johnny B. Goode' on the Voyager gold record,
and couldn't stop after that.”—John Jeremiah Sullivan
From Farinelli, the eighteenth century castrato who brought down
opera houses with his high C, to the recording of "Johnny B.
Goode" affixed to the Voyager spacecraft, Let Me Clear My
Throat dissects the whys and hows of popular voices, making them
hum with significance and emotion. There are murders of punk rock
crows, impressionists, and rebel yells; Howard Dean's "BYAH!" and
Marlon Brando's "Stella!" and a stock film yawp that has made
cameos in movies from A Star is Born to Spaceballs. The voice is
thought's incarnating instrument and Elena Passarello's essays are
a riotous deconstruction of the ways the sounds we make both
express and shape who we are—the annotated soundtrack of us
giving voice to ourselves.
Elena Passarello studied nonfiction writing at the University of
Pittsburgh and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and her
essays have appeared in Creative Nonfiction, Gulf Coast, Slate,
Iowa Review, and The Normal School, among others.
Jon Pineda, APOLOGY
Milkweed Editions; June 4, 2013
Translation/UK/Film/TV: C&S
Rights sold: Audio (Audible)
***Winner of the 2013 Milkweed National Fiction Prize***
"This hauntingly poetic first novel about mistakes, love, and
sacrifice... Reminiscent of Alessandro Baricco's Silk, this novel will
appeal to lovers of literary fiction."
—Library Journal (starred review)
An elegantly focused and deeply affecting novel of two immigrant
families linked by tragedy and bound by duty and sacrifice. When
nine-year-old Tom Serafino’s twin sister Teagan goes missing and is
later found permanently disabled, a police investigation implicates
Tom’s playmate Mario’s uncle—a transient known as Shoe.
Burdened by his own childhood tragedy, Shoe takes the blame for
his young nephew, ensuring Mario’s chance at a future Shoe never
had. Years later, when Mario is a medical student and Tom a
college professor removed from the strains of life with Teagan, Tom
returns home to help his aging parents dispute Shoe’s eligibility for
parole, and in doing so is forced to revisit the ghosts lingering
within his family’s four walls. Apology explores how the decisions
we make in an instant reverberate in the years to come.
Jon Pineda is the author of the memoir Sleep in Me, which was a
Barnes & Noble “Discover Great New Writers” selection and one
of Library Journal’s “Best Books of 2010.”
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Susan Tekulve, IN THE GARDEN OF STONE
Hub City Press; May 1, 2013
Translation/UK/Film/TV/Audio: C&S
Diana Wagman, THE CARE AND FEEDING OF EXOTIC PETS
Ig Publishing; November 6, 2012
Translation/UK/Film/TV/Audio: C&S
Rights sold: Audio (Audible)
**Winner of the 2012 South Carolina First Novel Prize**
“Tekulve’s descriptions of the hard, cold, dirty coal camp life,
above and below ground, are masterful … [Her] great gift is to live
in the hearts of her characters … Lyrical, haunting literary fiction.”
—Kirkus, starred review
“Beautifully written and absorbing …very much a story about place
and how it affects the human character.”—Library Journal
After a passing train derails and spills an avalanche of coal young
Emma Palmisano’s house, Emma awakes in darkness to the voice of
railroad man Caleb Sypher digging her out. Though she knows
little else about him, Emma marries Caleb, and he delivers her from
the gritty coal camp to thirty-four acres of Virginia mountain
farmland. The year is 1924, and the remote mines of Appalachia
have filled with poor, immigrant laborers building new lives half a
world away from Sicily. Emma gives birth to a son, Dean, but the
family’s life is shattered by a hobo’s bullet; the boy grows up fast,
cultivating fierce and unpredictable loyalties. Dean’s daughter,
Hannah, wanders far from home, in the end reconnecting with the
Sypher family in the wildest place of all, the human heart.
A harrowing multi-generational tale about the nature of power and
pride, love and loss, and how one impoverished family endures
estrangement from their land and each other in order to unearth
the rich seams of forgiveness and redemption.
**A Barnes & Noble Holiday Discover Selection**
***Major Motion Picture in Development***
“[T]he story is perfectly paced, with humorous breaks in the
tension…Wagman has crafted an unusual thriller for psychological
crime devotees and fans of the peculiar.”—Publishers Weekly
“Most literary abduction novels are about stolen children—Ms.
Wagman offers a smart, affecting reversal.”—Wall Street Journal
“A brisk and vividly drawn kidnapping tale”—Los Angeles Times
Winnie Parker is mother to an angsty teenaged daughter, Lacy,
and ex-wife to a successful game show host. After accepting what
she believes is a ride to pick up her rental car, Winnie realizes too
late she’s been kidnapped. What follows is a riveting psychological
game of cat and mouse set in the kidnapper’s tropically-heated
house. While desperately seeking to escape, Winnie also tries to
learn why she was taken captive. When the truth reveals itself,
Winnie is not only forced to fight for her own life, but to protect the
lives of those she loves from the kidnapper’s master plan. An
engrossing, darkly humorous, edge-of-your-seat novel, The Care &
Feeding of Exotic Pets explores the dynamic between the
kidnapper and the kidnapped, and the absurdity of Hollywood.
Diana Wagman is the author of the novels Bump, Spontaneous—
which won the USA PEN West Award for Fiction—and Skin Deep.
Wagman is also a contributing writer to the Los Angeles Times.
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SELECT TITLES
9
Trevor Aaronson, THE TERROR FACTORY: Inside the FBI’s
Manufactured War On Terrorism
Ig Publishing; January 15, 2013
Source Article is Winner, 2012 MOLLY Prize and
Finalist, 2011 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists
"Compelling, shocking, and gritty with intrigue."-Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
"A real eye-opener that questions how well the country's security is
being protected."-Kirkus Reviews
A groundbreaking work of investigative journalism, The Terror
Factory shows how the FBI has, under the guise of engaging in
counterterrorism since 9/11, built a network of more than fifteen
thousand informants whose primary purpose is to infiltrate Muslim
communities to create and facilitate phony terrorist plots. Originally
an award-winning cover story in Mother Jones
magazine—The Terror Factory reveals shocking information about
the criminals, con men, and liars the FBI uses as paid informants, as
well as documenting the extreme methods used to ensnare Muslims
in terrorist plots and how so-called terrorism consultants and
experts have made fortunes by exaggerating the threat of Islamic
terrorism in the United States.
Trevor Aaronson is associate director and co-founder of the Florida
Center for Investigative Reporting. He was an investigative
reporting fellow at UC Berkeley, where his reporting resulted in a
Mother Jones cover story that won the John Jay College/Harry
Frank Guggenheim 2012 Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting
Award.
Ryan Bartelmay, ONWARD TOWARD WHAT WE'RE GOING
TOWARD
Ig Publishing; August 2013
Rights sold: Germany/Blessing; UK/Constable & Robinson
"[D]eeply tender, unflinchingly wry, and deftly written ...
Combining the authorial style of Jeffrey Eugenides and Richard
Russo with themes of loss, desperation, and reconnection, [the
novel] is sharp, elegant, and poignant."–Booklist
“Ryan Bartelmay achieves something like intimate sweep in this
funny, soulful novel about love, time, and hope."–Sam Lipsyte
“What a kind, warm hearted and generous novel! [A] splendid
evocation of America’s heartland and the sometimes confused, lost,
desperately seeking and often comic souls that populate it.”
–Dinaw Mengestu, The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears
Postwar newlyweds Chic and Diane Waldbesser are determined to
carve out a life for themselves and their young son, Lomax, in
Middleville, Illinois, but when Lomax dies, Chic and Diane take
refuge in religion, haiku poetry, doll collecting, food and bowling.
Haunted by the suicide of their father, Chic’s older brother, Buddy,
struggles to make a life with his exotic, naïve wife, Lijy who is
hiding a devastating secret of her own. Coming headlong out of
Las Vegas in the 1990s and bound for Peoria, Illinois, are Green
Geneseo, a retired, widowed bank teller, and Mary Norwood, an
aging pool hustler, looking for one last swing at the American
Dream. The couple sideswipes the life of the now aged and
widowed Chic, offering him one last chance to right a life that has
been filled with sadness and tragedy.
Ryan Bartelmay received his MFA in fiction writing from Columbia
University. Onward… is his first novel.
10
Kirby Gann, GHOSTING
Ig Publishing; April 17, 2012
Rights sold: France/Editions du Seuil
“Gann’s newest novel is a tightly written Appalachian gothic told
from multiple perspectives. [T]he characters are fully realized—
rooted in the land and veined with bad blood—and their
motivations are complex and believable. Violent, bloody, and
darkly beautiful, this is a fascinating novel depicting the seedy
bottom of an America in decline.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred)
“Unfolding with unflinching clarity and moral inevitability, this is a
tale of love and loyalty, family and duty, naïveté and duplicity,
played out on an amoral landscape of drugs and violence. Hillbilly
noir as literary fiction of the first order.”—Kirkus Reviews
“Writing in brilliantly sustained licks of prose, Gann gives us fleshand-blood human beings who cannot escape what they cannot
help wanting. Their fate is true, the ride beautiful and dark.”
—John Burnham Schwartz
Fleece Skaggs has disappeared, along with drug dealer Lawrence
Gruel's reefer harvest. Taking his older brother’s place as a drug
runner for Gruel, James Cole plunges into a dark underworld of
drugs, violence, and long hidden family secrets, where discovering
what happened to his brother could cost him his life. A literary
mystery, Ghosting is both a simple quest for the truth and a
complex consideration of human frailty.
Jessica Stilling, BETWIXT AND BETWEEN
Ig Publishing; November 10, 2013 (galley available)
“In an impressive debut, Stilling deconstructs the body of lore
surrounding Peter Pan, reimagining Neverland as an in-between
place where boys who die too soon. Stilling’s take on this familiar
tale is provocative and poignant, rich with emotion and powerfully
described, laced with profound contemplations about dying too
soon and growing up too quickly.”—Publishers Weekly Peter Pan meets The Lovely Bones in this beautifully rendered and
emotionally devastating debut novel that explores where children
go when they die.
Betwixt and Between follows three intertwining narratives: that of
Preston Tumbler, a ten year old boy who is poisoned by a
neighbor and wakes up in Neverland, where he finds himself—
along with a group of other deceased children—under the watchful
eye of Peter Pan; Preston’s mother Claire in the real world as she
deals with the loss of her son; and a family in Victorian London as
they wait for their little girl to awake from a coma, a family whose
neighbor happens to be Peter Pan author JM Barrie.
Jessica Stilling has an MFA from City College, where she currently
teaches creative writing. She has been an editor for The Muse
Apprenticeship Guild, The Olive Tree Review and The Castalia
Project. She lives in New York City.
Kirby Gann is the author of the novels The Barbarian Parade and
Our Napoleon in Rags and Managing Editor at Sarabande Books.
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SELECT TITLES
12
Deni Y. Béchard, EMPTY HANDS, OPEN ARMS (Nonfiction)
Milkweed Editions; September 2013 (MS available)
Rights sold: Éditions Écosociété (French language)
Based on the author’s extensive research and travel in central
Africa, a fascinating account of one NGO’s surprisingly successful
efforts to save the endangered bonobo great apes. When
acclaimed author Deni Béchard first learned of the last living
bonobos—matriarchal great apes that are, alongside the
chimpanzee, our closest relatives in the animal kingdom—he was
astonished. As he looked more closely, Béchard discovered that in
fact one relatively small NGO, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative
(BCI), has done more to save bonobos and their natural habitat
than any number of far larger organizations. Based on the author’s
extensive travels in the Congo and Rwanda, and hundreds of hours
of interviews with conservationists all over the world, this book
explores how BCI has been so successful, offering in the process a
powerful, truly postcolonial model of conservation.
Béchard’s fascinating and moving account—filled as it is with
portraits of the extraordinary individuals and communities, Western
and Congolese, who make it all happen—offers an incomparably
rich example of how international conservation must be reinvented,
before it’s too late.
Deni Y. Béchard’s first novel, Vandal Love, won the 2007 British
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and his memoir, Cures for Hunger,
was an Indie Next pick in 2012. His articles, stories and
translations have appeared in publications such as the National
Post, the Harvard Review and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin. He has
done freelance reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, and has lived in
and traveled through over thirty countries.
Deni Y. Béchard, VANDAL LOVE
Milkweed Editions; May 15, 2012, Reissue
Rights sold: original edition (Doubleday Canada), French language
territories (Québec Amérique), Arabic (General Egyptian Book
Office); Russia (Eksmo).
"This dreamlike novel spans five generations in the lives of a
French-Canadian family of misfits...a strange and beautiful first
novel...built sentence by luminous, surprising sentence."
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
“Béchard has a voice and a vision all his own, both tough-minded
and passionately emotional.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“[A] moving and entertaining debut…Though Béchard (Cures for
Hunger, a memoir) has a journalism background, this fiction debut,
unfolding in punchy prose, recalls Márquez with a FrenchCanadian twist. —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Winner of the prestigious British Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for
best first book in 2007, Vandal Love follows generations of a
French-Canadian family across North America and through the
twentieth century. A family curse--a genetic trick resulting from
centuries of hardship--causes the Hervé children to be born either
giants or runts. Book I follows the giants’ line, exploring Jude
Hervé’s career as a boxer in Georgia and Louisiana in the 1960s,
his escape from that brutal life, and his daughter’s eventual
decision to enter into a strange, chaste marriage. Book II traces the
runts of the family as they discover that their power lies in a kind of
unifying love. But none of the Hervés can abandon their longing
for a place where they might find others like themselves.
13
Alison Hawthorne Deming, ZOOLOGIES: On Animals and the
Human Spirit
Milkweed Editions; June 2014 (MS available)
In this collection of unprecedented and deeply affecting linked
essays moving from mammoth hunts to house cats, and touching on
cheetahs, crows, whales, and countless other beings between,
Alison Hawthorne Deming explores profound questions about what
it means to be animal. What is inherent in animals that leads us to
destroy, and what that leads us toward peace? As human animals,
how does art both define us as a species and how does it emerge
primarily from our relationship with other species? And how does
grief, and the acknowledgment of loss, relate to what action we
take next, to the saving or memorializing of the world? The reader
emerges with a transformed sense of how the living world around
them has and continues to define them in a powerful way.
Alison’s work goes beyond the consideration of humans as
individuals or animals as individual subjects and considers, instead,
our animal communality—how our non-human relationships affect
our sensibilities.
Alison Hawthorne Deming is the author of three collections of
poetry and three nonfiction books. Science and Other Poems, her
first book, was selected by Gerald Stern for the Walt Whitman
Award of the Academy of American Poets, and her nonfiction
collection, The Edges of the Civilized World, was a finalist for the
PEN Center West Award. She is former Stegner Fellow and has
received numerous NEA fellowships. Deming is a Professor in
Creative Writing at the University of Arizona and also serves as
Chairperson of the Board of Directors for Orion magazine.
Tamas Dobozy, SIEGE 13
Milkweed Editions; February 19, 2013
Rights sold: Canada, English and all French language territories
(Thomas Allen); Lithuania (Versus)
Shortlisted for 2013 Frank O’Connor International Award*Winner
of the Rogers Trust Fiction Prize*Finalist for the Governor General's
Literary Award*A Quill & Quire Book of the Year*Amazon.CA
Best Book of 2012 pick
"The sheer variety of Dobozy’s approaches to telling stories, and
his commitment not only to provoke thought but to entertain,
constitute a virtuoso performance. [W]ithout question one of my
favorite story collections ever." --Jeff VanderMeer, The Washington
Post
Built around the events of the Soviet Budapest Offensive at the end
of World War II, the stories in Siege 13 are full of wit, irony, and
dark humor. In a series of linked stories that alternate between the
siege itself and a contemporary community of Hungarian émigrés
who find refuge in the West, Dobozy utilizes a touch of deadpan
humor and a deep sense of humanity to extol the horrors and
absurdity of ordinary people caught in the crosshairs of brutal
conflict and its silent aftermath.
Tamas Dobozy is the author of Last Notes and When X Equals
Marylou. His works have also been anthologized in The Best
American Nonrequired Reading, and he was awarded an O.
Henry Prize. Dobozy was a Fulbright Scholar in Creative Writing
at New York University, and now teaches at Wilfrid Laurier
University in Ontario, Canada.
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Murray Farish, INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR
Milkweed Editions; March 2014 (MS available)
The characters in Murray Farish’s debut collection, Inappropriate
Behavior, teeter on the brink of sanity, while those around them
reach out in support, watch helplessly, or duck for cover. In
“Lubbock Is Not a Place of the Spirit,” a Texas Tech student
recognizable as John Hinckley, Jr. writes hundreds of songs for
Jodie Foster as he grows increasingly estranged from reality. Other
characters are recognizable in the sense that their situations strike
an emotional chord. The young couple in “Something About
Norfolk,” socially isolated after a cross-country move, are
dismayed to find themselves unable to resist sexually deviant urges.
And in the deeply touching title story, a couple stretched to their
limit after the husband’s layoff struggle to care for their emotionally
unbalanced young son.
In stories set in cities across America—Lubbock, TX; St. Louis, MO;
Norfolk, VA—and spanning the last half century, Murray Farish
draws a bead on our national identity, distilling our obsessions, our
hauntings, our collective predicament. In their loneliness and
desperation, his characters cast about for a way to connect, to be
understood. More often than not, things go horribly wrong. Yet
even in their darkest moments, these stories crackle with pitchperfect dialogue and light up with flashes of electric humor.
Murray Farish lives with his wife and two sons in St. Louis,
Missouri, where he teaches writing and literature at Webster
University.
Michael Garriga, THE BOOK OF DUELS
Milkweed Editions; March 2014 (MS available)
A debut collection depicting historical and imagined “duels”
In this compact collection, “settling the score” provides a
fascinating apparatus for exploring foundational civilizing ideas.
Notions of courage, cowardice, and revenge course through
Michael Garriga’s flash-fiction pieces, each one of which captures
a duel’s decisive moment from three distinct perspectives: opposing
accounts from the individual duelists, followed by the third account
of a witness. In razor-honed language, the voices of the duelists
take center stage, training a spotlight on the litany of misguided
beliefs and perceptions that lead individuals into such conflicts.
From Cain and Abel to Andrew Jackson and Charles Dickinson;
from John Henry and the steam drill to an alcoholic fighting the
bottle: the cumulative effect of these powerful pieces is a probing
and disconcerting look at humankind’s long-held notions of pride,
honor, vengeance, and satisfaction. Meticulously crafted by
Garriga, and with stunning illustrations by Tynan Kerr, The Book of
Duels is a fierce, searing debut.
Michael Garriga holds a PhD from Florida State University’s
creative writing program. His short fiction has appeared in New
Letters, Black Warrior Review and elsewhere. Garriga lives with his
family in Ohio, where he teaches creative writing in the English
department at Baldwin-Wallace College.
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Robin Wall Kimmerer, BRAIDING SWEETGRASS: Indigenous
Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Milkweed Editions; October 15, 2013
“Kimmerer has written an extraordinary book. She is a wonderful
storyteller, but it is the way she captures beauty that I love the
most. [T]he images of giant cedars and wild strawberries will stay
with you long after you read the last page.” —Jane Goodall
“Kimmerer writes about the natural world from a place of such
abundant passion that her love fills the reader’s soul. In Braiding
Sweetgrass, she takes us on a journey that is every bit as mystical
as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love
“With deep compassion and graceful prose, Kimmerer encourages
readers to consider the ways that our lives and language weave
through the natural world. A mesmerizing storyteller, she shares
legends from her Potawatomi ancestors to illustrate the culture of
gratitude in which we all should live. She reminds readers that we
are showered every day with gifts, but … [o]ur work and our joy is
to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put into the universe
will always come back.” –Publishers Weekly
Combining science, Native American teachings, and memoir,
Kimmerer takes readers through ancient forests and backyard
ponds, sacred sites and urban wastelands. As a leading researcher
in biology, Kimmerer understands the delicate state of our world.
As a member of the Potawatomi nation, she senses and relates to
the world through ancient wisdom. Intertwining the analytic and the
emotional, the scientific and the cultural, she brings readers back
into conversation with all that is green and growing.
Robin Wall Kimmerer’s first book, Gathering Moss was awarded
the 2005 John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing.
Rafael Routson, STILWATER
Milkweed Editions; May 2014 (MS available)
In northwestern Australia, ranches spread across hundreds of
thousands of acres and contain hundreds of thousands of cattle—as
well as the most poisonous snakes in the world, a frightening
number of crocodiles, and countless other equally dangerous and
strange animals—and feature a society of ringers, wranglers, and
outlaws unique to the edge of wildness. To muster these remote
swaths of land the workers use motorcycles, modified jeeps,
helicopters, and horses to move oceans of cows across hundreds of
miles of intensely dangerous territory. Rafael Routson, for a
number of strange reasons, was dropped into this world at 24 as a
ringer on a station crew.
In Stilwater, Routson attempts to make sense of a world where
human order and animal wildness are constantly at war, with
wildness always seeming to win. In beautiful and gritty prose,
Routson explores the place and how it transforms her young urge
to delve deeper and deeper into the wild.
Rafael Routson grew up on a farm in the foothills of the Santa
Maria Mountains outside of Prescott, Arizona. Her childhood
involved helping to grow food for the family, working with
livestock, building in stone and adobe, and exploring and learning
from the land. She dropped out of school and began working for
the rugged Cross U Ranch in north central Arizona at age thirteen,
riding, branding, shoeing horses, and gathering cows. She earned
a MFA in Creative Nonfiction from the University of Arizona.
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NOTABLE
17
Elias Aboujaoude, VIRTUALLY YOU: The Dangerous Powers of the E-Personality
W.W. Norton, February 2010
British/Translation/Audio/First serial: Norton
Rights sold: China (complex)/Wealth Press; China (simplified)/Beijing Cultural; Poland/Jagiellonian
“With a practice located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, Stanford University psychiatrist Aboujaoude credibly and rigorously explains how
the way an individual functions in cyberspace impacts his or her behavior in the real world. Instantly engaging and eminently accessible,
Aboujaoude offers an enlightening and cautionary exploration of an increasingly intrusive aspect of modern society.” –Carol Haggas, Booklist
A penetrating examination of the insidious effects of the Internet on our personalities—online and off. Whether sharing photos or following
financial markets, many of us spend a shocking amount of time online. While the Internet can enhance well-being, Elias Aboujaoude has spent
years treating patients whose lives have been profoundly disturbed by it. Part of the danger lies in how the Internet allows us to act with
exaggerated confidence, sexiness, and charisma. This new self, which Aboujaoude dubs our "e-personality," manifests itself in every curt email
we send, Facebook "friend" we make, and "buy now" button we click. Too potent to be confined online, however, e-personality traits seep
offline, too, making us impatient, unfocused, and urge-driven even after we log off. Virtually You uses examples from Aboujaoude's personal
and professional experience to highlight this new phenomenon. The first scrutiny of the virtual world's transformative power on our
psychology, Virtually You shows us how real life is being reconfigured in the image of a chat room, and how our identity increasingly
resembles that of our avatar.
Elias Aboujaoude, MD, a Stanford University psychiatrist, earned an MD from Stanford University and a bachelor's degree from the University
of California, Berkeley. He lives in San Francisco.
Margaux Fragoso, TIGER, TIGER
Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, March 2011
British/Translation/Audio/First serial: FSG; Film: C&S
Audio/Recorded Books; Brazil/Rocco; Bulgaria/Publishing Group Bulgaria; Canada/Douglas & McIntyre; Catalonia/Grup 62;
China/Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House; Czech Republic/Jota; Denmark/Gad; France/Flammarion;
Germany/Frankfurter Verlagsanstalt; Hungary/Nyitott Konyvmuhely; Italy/Mondadori; Japan/Hara Shobo; Romania/Pandora;
Spain/Seix Barral; Taiwan/China Times; Netherlands/De Bezige Bij; Norway/Gyldendaal; Poland/Proszynski; Portugal/Porto Editora;
Russia/Ripol; Slovakia/Ikar; Sweden/Norstedts; Turkey/Artemis/Alfa; UK/Penguin Press; Film/Hector Babenco (Director)
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***NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER***
A Kirkus Reviews “Outstanding Debut of 2011”
A Publishers Weekly “Best Book of 2011”
One summer day, Margaux Fragoso meets Peter Curran at the neighborhood swimming pool, and they begin to play. She is seven; he is fiftyone. When Peter invites her and her mother to his house, the little girl finds a child’s paradise of exotic pets and an elaborate backyard
garden. Her mother, beset by mental illness and overwhelmed by caring for Margaux, is grateful for the attention Peter lavishes on her, and
he creates an imaginative universe for her, much as Lewis Carroll did for his real-life Alice.
In time, he insidiously takes on the role of Margaux’s playmate, father, and lover. Charming and manipulative, Peter burrows into every
aspect of Margaux’s life and transforms her from a child fizzing with imagination and affection into a brainwashed young woman on the verge
of suicide. But when she is twenty-two, it is Peter—ill, and wracked with guilt—who kills himself, at the age of sixty-six.
Told with lyricism, depth, and mesmerizing clarity, Tiger, Tiger vividly illustrates the healing power of memory and disclosure. This
extraordinary memoir is an unprecedented glimpse into the psyche of a young girl in free fall and conveys to readers—including parents and
survivors of abuse—just how completely a pedophile enchants his victim and binds her to him.
Margaux Fragoso has a PhD in English/creative writing from Binghamton University. Her short stories and poems have appeared in The
Literary Review, Barrow Street, Other Voices, and Paddlefish, among various other literary journals.
Hal Herzog, SOME WE LOVE, SOME WE HATE, SOME WE EAT: Why It’s So Hard to Think Straight About Animals
Harper, September 2010
British/Translation/Audio/First serial: Harper
Rights sold: Audio/Tantor; China (complex)/Walkers Cultural Enterprise; Germany/Hanser; Italy/Bollati Boringhieri; Japan/Kashiwashobo
Publishing; Korea/Sallim; Netherlands/Ten Have; Russia/Kariera-Press Publishing; Spain/Kairos
“Reminiscent of Freakonomics. . . An agreeable guide to popular avenues of inquiry in the field of anthrozoology…” —The New Yorker
“In his fascinating new book, Hal Herzog looks at the wild, tortured paradoxes in our relationship with the weaker, if sometimes more
adorable, species.” —Kerry Lauerman, Salon
“A fun read. . . . What buoys this book is Herzog’s voice. He’s an assured, knowledgeable and friendly guide.” —Associated Press
How do we reconcile our love for animals with our nearly insatiable desire to eat them? Do children who abuse animals usually become
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violent adults? Why do some breeds of dogs become popular almost overnight? It is ethical to use dolphins as therapists for autistic children?
Why do most vegetarians eventually return to eating meat? What are the real health benefits of living with pets?
Hal Herzog offers surprising answers to these and other questions in a lively and deeply intelligent look inside our paradoxical
relationships with other species. From the psychology behind animal hoarding to the moral quandaries of animal research, one of the world’s
leading experts on the new science of human-animal relationships examines the difficult decisions we all face when it comes to the furry and
feathered creatures with whom we share this planet.
Alternately poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat takes readers on a highly
entertaining and illuminating journey through the full spectrum of human-animal interactions, relating Dr. Herzog’s groundbreaking research on
groups such as animal rights activists, biomedical researchers, cockfighters, and veterinary students. Using cognitive psychology, evolutionary
biology, anthropology and moral philosophy, Herzog carefully crafts a seamless narrative composed of real life anecdotes, the latest scientific
research, and his own sense of moral ambivalence.
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat offers a refreshing new perspective on our lives with animals—one that will
forever change the way we look at our relationships with other creatures and, in so doing, will also change the way we look at ourselves.
A prize winning teacher and researcher, Dr. Hal Herzog is regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on human-animal relations. He is
Professor of Psychology at Western Carolina University and lives in the mountains of North Carolina with his wife Mary Jean and their cat.
Andrew Porter, THE THEORY OF LIGHT AND MATTER
University of Georgia Press, HC, October 2008; Vintage, TP, January 2010
Translation/UK/Audio: Vintage Anchor
Rights sold: Audio/Recorded Books; Australia/Text; Bulgaria/Millennium; France/Editions de L’Olivier; Korea/BOOK21; Netherlands/De
Bezige Bij; UK/Jonathan Cape
Winner of the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award
Long-listed for the 2009 Frank O’Connor International Award
Finalist for the Paterson Prize
Drawing on the tradition of Richard Yates and John Cheever, Porter’s stories explore loss and sacrifice in suburban America, but with a
contemporary spin. From Pennsylvania to Southern California, characters are engaged in relationships in all their diversity, coming together
from different cultures, backgrounds, and sexual orientations. The stories lead up to a specific, traumatic event in the character’s past (or in
one case, future), and memories are faulty as characters struggle to determine what has happened to their loved ones and whether they are
responsible. In “Hole” a young man reconstructs the memory of his childhood friend’s deadly fall; in “River Dog” the narrator cannot fully
remember a drunken party where he suspects his older brother assaulted a class mate and questions whether he could have possibly done
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something to stop it; and in “Azul” a childless couple, craving the affection of an exchange student, fails to set the boundaries that would keep
him safe.
A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Andrew Porter is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards. Porter lives in San Antonio
and is Assistant Professor at Trinity University, where he established and runs the creative writing program.
“[A] luminous collection ... Porter’s use of poetic yet plainspoken language and his thoughtful consideration of the fractured American family
place his writing in direct dialogue with the work of John Cheever and Raymond Carver. But Porter is no mere student of these masters. As the
ten stories in this luminous collection demonstrate, Porter has his own compelling vision of human longing, loneliness and grief. ... Porter’s The
Theory of Light and Matter is a memorable debut that honors the history of the short story form while blazing a new trajectory all its own.”—
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“[A] beautifully executed short story collection . . . Porter pulls us through the looking glass into a world where adults suffer from failed
careers or sexual confusion and their offspring are underachievers at best or, at worst, mentally ‘not right.’ There’s a crisp economy to these
stories that nicely underpins their offbeat narratives.”—Texas Monthly
“In Porter’s debut story collection, he casts an unflinching, psychological eye on modern suburban life, its failed and revised dreams, and the
madness and illness that can chip away at families and relationships.”—Poets & Writers Magazine
“Like taking a sip of the clearest mountain spring water . . . With clear, strong prose marked by devious underpinnings, Porter’s style is
straightforward, his characters careful narrators treading above a murky pool.”—Booklist
Glenn Taylor, THE MARROWBONE MARBLE COMPANY
Ecco, May 2010
Translation, UK/ANZ, Film: C&S
Rights sold: France/Grasset; Italy/Elliot; UK/HarperCollins-Blue Door; Portugal/Civilizaçao
AN INDIE NEXT PICK!
Amazon’s Best Books of the Month
National Book Critics Circle Award-finalist Glenn Taylor impresses with his second novel, The Marrowbone Marble Company. The title is a
mouthful, but seems just right given the satisfying and substantive story of a man determined to create his own utopia in the hardscrabble and
racially-divided West Virginia of the post-war years. Loyal Ledford, a poor-as-dirt orphan works the furnaces of the local glass factory, yet he
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plots his escape by joining the Marines. He soon finds himself in another purgatory--Guadalcanal--in the last years of WWII. With a wounded
body and mind, Ledford returns home, determined to start a family and live on his own terms. On old family land, he rediscovers kin and
builds a marble factory from the ground up with the help of two part-Indian cousins, an idealistic white preacher, and an African-American
family. Within the novel's historic context, the small Marrowbone community, comprised of unique and open-minded souls is, like the marbles it
produces, a perfect microcosm in a very imperfect world. --Lauren Nemroff, Amazon.com
“[A] sense of a haunted past and the tension between old and new ways of thinking and being suffuse the novel. The tangled bonds of kinship
are reflected in other blood ties over the course of The Marrowbone Marble Company, whether bonds of fraternity or of vengeance, of racial
hatred or of solidarity against it. In biblical terms, many of the plot developments pit the notion of an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,
against the nonviolent path of turning the other cheek...The southern, evangelical religious motifs that Taylor works with...might seem
reminiscent of Flannery O’Connor’s work to some readers. That is surely a curse to many a writer since her time, but Taylor makes such things
his own, in his own way. At base [Marrowbone Marble Company] is a story of utopian striving...” —Chicago Tribune
“Taylor’s socially astute and fast-moving sophomore novel is earthy, authentic, and a testament to his literary talent.” —(starred) Publishers
Weekly
“Taylor, a mesmerizing storyteller fascinated by small wonders as well as epic change, balances rage with tenderness as his intriguing and
heroic characters effect a small revolution. With an acute sense of nature’s mysteries as well as human suffering and redemption, Taylor has
created a remarkably complex, soulful, and provocative historical novel righteous in its perspective on America’s struggle to live up to its core
beliefs.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist (starred)
“Glenn Taylor’s plain spoken eloquence on labor, race, and war recalls the voices in Studs Terkel’s inspired Working. The Marrowbone
Marble Company, a novel of stirring clarity and power, speaks unforgettably from a half century ago to issues still unresolved in American life.
Taylor has composed a hymn to the human heart.”— JAYNE ANNE PHILLIPS, author of Lark and Termite
From the author of The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, a finalist for the 2009 National Book Critics Circle Award, comes this sweeping novel
of love and war, power and oppression, faith and deception, over the course of three defining american decades. Returning to the West
Virginia territory of the critically acclaimed The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, Glenn Taylor recounts the transformative journey of a man
and his community. Told in clean and powerful prose in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy and John Irving, The Marrowbone Marble
Company takes a harrowing look at the issues of race and class throughout the tumultuous 1950s and '60s. It is a story of struggle and loss,
righteousness and redemption, and it can only be found in the hills of Marrowbone. Glenn Taylor was born and raised in Huntington, West
Virginia. His first novel, The Ballad of Trenchmouth Taggart, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Barnes & Noble
Discover Great New Writers selection. Taylor lives in Morgantown, West Virginia with his wife and three sons. He teaches in the English
Department at West Virginia University.
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INTERNATIONAL CO-AGENTS
China/Taiwan
Mr. Gray Tan
Grayhawk Agency
[email protected]
France
Ms. Catherine Lapautre
Agence Lapautre
[email protected]
Germany
Ms. Antonia Fritz
Peter & Paul Fritz AG
[email protected]
Israel
Ms. Ilana Kurshan
The Deborah Harris Agency
[email protected]
Netherlands
Ms. Marianne Schonbach
Schonbach Literary Agecy
[email protected]
Turkey
Ms. Amy Spangler
Anatolialit Agency
[email protected]
Poland, Albania, Bosnia &
Herzegovina, Bulgaria,
Croatia, Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia,
Lithuania, Macedonia,
Montenegro, Romania,
Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia
Mr. Lukasz Wrobel
Graal Ltd
[email protected]
UK/ANZ
Mr. Caspian Dennis
Abner Stein Literary Agency
[email protected]
Regarding all other territories please
contact Terra Chalberg for further
information.
[email protected]
Russia
Ms. Elizabeth Van Lear
The Van Lear Agency
[email protected]
Italy
Mr. Marco Vigevani
Marco Vigevani Agenzia Letteraria
[email protected]
Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden,
Norway, Finland)
Mr. Philip Sane
Lennart Sane Agency
[email protected]
Korea
Ms. Sue Yang
Eric Yang Agency
[email protected]
Spain/Portugal/Brazil
Ms. Teresa Vilarrubla
The Foreign Office
[email protected]
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