Hollywood and Cyan-tology

The next BEA may be 51 weeks away, but it’s not too early for L.A. agents and scouts to remember to make tiny Cyan Books a stop on their 2008 convention floor travels. Though U.K.–based Cyan launched its U.S. imprint just 18 months ago, early titles have strong ties to Hollywood, unusual for a small press. Tramps Like Us (April), Cyan’s first U.S. title, is by 102 Dalmatians and How to Lose a Guy screenwriter Kristen Buckley. In the raunchy memoir, Buckley, whom the Washington Post noted “has a penchant for excessive profanity,” revisits the big hair and backed-up sewers (don’t ask) of her New Jersey youth. (Disclosure: Buckley is a friend, and even more profane in real life.) Buckley plans to adapt Tramps herself. If sold, it won’t be the first time Buckley has transferred her own work to the screen: the screenwriter sold her novel The Parker Grey Show (Berkley, 2003) to New Line and wrote the script. Richard Pine and UTA’s Howard Sanders rep Buckley.

Two other Cyan 2007 titles may also catch Hollywood’s eye: Failure, a “thematic memoir” by Josh Gidding, and a reissue of Stewart Tendler and David May’s The Brotherhood of Eternal Love (Oct.), a cult classic about LSD originally published in 1984. Brotherhood was originally optioned by no less than Brokeback Mountain director Ang Lee.

Need more proof that Hollywood runs on personal relationships? Look no further than the players behind the deal for Matthew Quick’s The Silver Linings Playbook (Sarah Crichton/FSG, early 2009). As Quick’s agent, Douglas Stewart of Sterling Lord, was closing the pub deal for the first novel by the former 32-year-old ex–high school English teacher, CAA’s Rich Green was having lunch with former Miramax production exec Michelle Raimo. Green mentioned that he had submitted the book to Mirage partners Anthony Minghella and Sydney Pollack. Raimo, who had acquired several books from Green and CAA while at Miramax, loved the sound of the book (about a man released from a psychiatric hospital who tries to redeem his relationship with his estranged wife), so Green paired her with Mirage and sold it to newly arrived Weinstein Company exec Renee Witt— a close friend from Raimo’s New York days.

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