Getting There First

by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 4/25/2005

How HarperCollins executive editor Dan Conaway got a first look at a hot new novel by Sara Gran is a story in itself. Tipped off by one of the several eager foreign buyers of her first novel, Come Closer (published by Soho), Conaway got in touch with Gran and found she was looking for a new agent—her existing one had retired. He recommended Simon Lipskar at Writers House, the two connected, and thus Conaway secured a first look at her next novel, Dope. It's a dark story set in the heroin underworld of New York in the 1950s, and Conaway, who sees it as a mix of Patricia Highsmith and William S. Burroughs, was so impressed he preempted it on the spot—and for good measure bought paperback rights to her first book as well. Meanwhile, other good things have been happening for Gran; Come Closer, a tale of a woman's possibly demonic possession, has been bought for the movies by the Weinstein brothers, and Jody Hotchkiss, who made that deal, is also shopping film rights to the new one. Atlantic Books in London has U.K. and foreign rights.