Alice Randall Redux

The author of the controversial satire The Wind Done Gone, which resulted in lawsuits from the Margaret Mitchell estate, has settled for another, very different, book with her publisher, Houghton Mifflin. It's called Pushkin and the Queen of Spades, and senior editor Anton Mueller signed it for world rights directly with Randall, without benefit of agent, hoping to publish next spring. It's described as the story of a noted African-American authority on the Russian author whose football player son becomes involved with a Russian lap dancer. It's a study of mother love and of the tensions between high and low black culture, with settings ranging from Detroit to St. Petersburg, adds Mueller.