Slave Labor at Home

Random's Dan Menaker won an auction, with a significant six-figure bid for two books, for a book tentatively titled The Gun in Your Orange Juice: and Other Tales from the Slave Trade by New Yorker writer John Bowe. It's an expansion of Bowe's recent piece in the magazine about slave labor practices in Florida's citrus groves, and will also include a wider examination of the growing problem of similar practices elsewhere in the U.S. today, aided and abetted by corporate lobbyists working on politicians to tone down prohibitions. Menaker bought North American rights from Bill Clegg at Burnes & Clegg and hopes, he says, that the book will be so compelling as to be "remedial."