Holt Grabs Lawyer-Blogger for Novel

Holt publisher John Sterling was so intrigued by a recent New York Times story about a blogger who calls himself Anonymous Lawyer that, after reading some of the blogs, he e-mailed the author to see if he had considered writing a novel. In fact, he had, and third-year Harvard Law grad Jeremy Blachman, his cover blown, had even already found himself an agent, William Morris's Suzanne Gluck. So Sterling and his editors had a meeting with Blachman; found him "just as delightful as you'd expect"; offered Gluck a major preempt to forestall a planned auction; and now they have North American and first serial rights to Blachman's novel—which will be narrated in blog form, naturally. It has no title yet other than "Anonymous Lawyer," and when it's completed, it will be a suspenseful study of life inside a law firm where a senior partner has committed an indiscretion that gets blown out of proportion.