'Ruby's Spoon' to S&G
by Matthew Thornton -- Publishers Weekly, 10/15/2008 11:07:00 AM
Rubyʼs Spoon, a debut novel byAnna Lawrence Pietroni that has generated much buzz in Frankfurt, will be published in the U.S. by Spiegel & Grau with Juile Grau besting two other bidders for U.S. rights. Chatto & Windus took U.K. rights in a heated auction on the eve of the fair. Tina Bennett at Janklow & Nesbit handled both sales.
The novel, set in 1930s England in a landlocked industrial town still haunted by the Great War, focuses on the motherless thirteen-year-old Ruby, whose dreams of escaping her claustrophobic home may be realized with the arrival of a charismatic and mysterious white-haired woman from the coast; meanwhile, the tight-knit women of the community come to see the outsider as the cause of the townʼs accelerating misfortunes. The book has drawn comparisons to Thomas Hardyʼs Wessex novels, and, more recently, the writing of Sarah Waters. Pietroni, an Oxford graduate with a Masterʼs degree in childrenʼs literature, is also a former prison warden. Spiegel & Grau will publish in 2010, coordinating with Chattoʼs publication that spring.
