HC Synergy Pays Off

The synergy among branches of HarperCollins, often lacking in other multinational groups, was cited in a recent sale by Toronto agent Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative. The book, by Rosemary Sullivan, is about Villa Air-Bel in Marseilles, where many notable European intellectuals and artists, including Andre Breton, Marc Chagall, Marcel Duchamp and Max Ernst, were helped to escape from the Nazis in WWII by the efforts of Vartan Fry's U.S. Emergency Rescue Committee, based there. Kaiser had already sold Canadian rights to Iris Tupholme at Harper Canada, and several people in the publisher's New York office read her editorial meeting notes about it and asked after the book, including Morrow's Michael Morrison and Claire Wachtel. It was the latter who acquired it with an aggressive preempt for world rights outside Canada. "Morrow definitely had the jump because they paid attention to those minutes," said Kaiser, who added that Perseus, which had an option and also wanted the book, took too long to make an offer. It was the Counterpoint imprint there that published Sullivan's previous well-received book, Labyrinth of Desire: Women, Passion and Romantic Obsession.