Tobar Taps Miners
Sean McDonald at Farrar, Straus & Giroux bought North American rights to a new nonfiction book about the Chilean miners, by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Héctor Tobar. Tobar’s current book, the novel The Barbarian Nurseries, was published in September by FSG. Tobar—represented by William Morris Endeavor, which also represents the miners (who gained fame after getting trapped below ground for 69 days in 2010)—had what FSG called “full access” to his subjects. The book, which will reveal what happened in the mine as well as detail the miners’ lives since they survived the ordeal, has also been optioned for film, with producer Mike Medavoy (Black Swan) and screenwriter José Rivera (Motorcycle Diaries) attached. FSG said Tobar will be working closely with Rivera on the screenplay; the book is scheduled for fall 2013.
Gallery Goes to the Pound, and the Prison, with Luttrell
Sorche Fairbank, at Fairbank Literary Representation, closed a six-figure deal with Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books for journalist Sharron Kahn Luttrell’s memoir, Weekends with Daisy. Abby Zidle and Jen Bergstrom pre-empted world English rights to the book, which chronicles the author’s experience with the Prison PUP Partnership. Through the program, civilians care for service-dogs-in-training on weekends, while a prisoner has the animal throughout the week. Luttrell was assigned Ryan, who had spent half his life in jail, and a yellow lab, Daisy. The book was optioned for film the day before it sold to Gallery, with CBS Films offering a six-figure pre-empt (against what Fairbank called “nearly a $1 million purchase price”), in a deal brokered by Luke Sandler at the Gotham Group, with Lauren Shuler Donner and Jack Leslie of the Donner Company producing. In the book, Luttrell expands upon how her plan backfired: she did the program hoping it would help her overcome the loss of her dog, but, instead, grew perilously attached to Daisy and, in a way, to Ryan. Fairbank explained: “The book traces Daisy’s evolution from puppy to service dog and how, through the process of caring for her, Ryan learned responsibility, gained hope, and had a taste of redemption, whilel Sharron learned empathy, forgiveness, and how to let go.
Krokos Gets Beamed Up at Starscape
At Tor’s YA fantasy/SF imprint, Starscape, Whitney Ross took North American rights, in a two-book deal, to The Planet Thieves and a sequel by Dan Krokos. Suzie Townsend at Nancy Coffey Literary represented Krokos in the deal. (Krokos is also under contract for a trilogy with Hyperion; the first book in his False Memory series is slated for August 2012, with the next two books set to come out in August 2013 and August 2014, respectively.) In Planet Thieves, which Townsend pitched as “Star Trek meets Rick Riordan,” a 13-year-old boy who spends his summers as a cadet in the Earth Space Command is forced to take charge when the adults on his crew are taken hostage.
Sullivan Invades the ‘One Percent’
Alessandra Bastagli at Free Press bought North American rights to Paul Sullivan’s sophomore effort, The One Percent: What I Learned from the Richest People in America and What They Can Teach You. The Gernert Company’s Erika Storella handled the sale—it was a pre-empt—for Sullivan, who writes the Wealth Matters column in the New York Times and whose first book, Clutch: Why Some People Excel Under Pressure and Others Don’t, was published by Portfolio in 2010. Free Press has One Percent scheduled for January 2014.
Snyderman, Gurian Deliver New Med Guide
Nancy L. Snyderman and Michael Gurian sold a new health book, at auction, to Sarah Durand at Atria. Snyderman is the chief medical editor at NBC (and a bestselling author), and Gurian is behind the bestselling books The Wonder of Girls and The Wonder of Boys. The currently untitled book, which Durand took world rights to from agents Amy Rennert (who reps Snyderman) and Bonnie Solow (who reps Gurian), will offer a holistic approach to health. As Durand explained, the book will be “an authoritative guide to understanding and embracing your physical, emotional, and spiritual health from midlife onward, focusing especially on the differences between males and females as they age.”
Briefs
Michael Reynolds, editor-in-chief of Europa Editions, nabbed North American rights to Richard Beard’s novel Lazarus Is Dead in a deal brokered by agent Anna Stein on behalf of Lucy Luck at Aitken Alexander Associates Ltd. Lazarus was published in the U.K. by Harvill Secker in August—Beard, who lives in England, has written four other novels—and is, per Europa, “an utterly original, highly imaginative take on the life of Lazarus.” Europa is planning to release the novel as a paperback original in October 2012.
Actress Meredith Eaton (NCIS) and her producing partner, Suzanne Tenner, optioned the dramatic rights to Melanie Benjamin’s historical novel The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb, which Delacorte published in July 2011. Bill Contardi handled the deal on behalf of Benjamin’s literary agent, Laura Langlie; the book is a fictionalized life story of two-foot-eight-inch–tall Mercy Lavinia “Vinnie” Bump, who wound up working for P.T. Barnum and marrying the equally diminutive sideshow performer Tom Thumb.
