Newt's New Look at Gettysburg
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 7/29/2002
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, now busy polishing his fictional skills, has sold a novel depicting a very different outcome to the Battle of Gettysburg as part of a two-book experiment in alternative history. It was a six-figure, world hard/soft deal, made with Tom Dunne and Pete Wolverton at the former's St. Martin's Press imprint by West Coast agent Jillian Manus of Manus & Associates. Manus retains movie, audio and game rights. The first of the "what if?" pair, Gettysburg: Lee's Greatest Victory, to be co-written with novelist and historian William R. Fortschen, will suppose that Gen. Robert E. Lee won the epochal battle, as many had expected him to do, and what might have been the results for American history if he had. Publication is planned for July 4 next year, to coincide with the 140th anniversary of the battle, which is expected to be a major public occasion.
