Interest High in Dial Debut Novel
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 4/16/2001
A first novel by a Canadian living in London, Crow Lake by Mary Lawson, swiftly preempted by Dial's Susan Kamil recently, has now been taken on in the U.K. and Canada also, both after eagerly contested auctions. Alison Samuels at Chatto & Windus took U.K. rights, and Louise Dennys at Knopf Canada won it there; other overseas offers are pending. The book, about the struggles of a group of orphaned children in a remote corner of Ontario, was found in the slushpile at the London agency of Lutyens & Rubinstein, and was shopped here by cooperating agent Kim Witherspoon. Kamil plans to publish in winter/spring 2002.
