His Paris Trout, published by Random, was a National Book Award—winning bestseller 12 years ago, and now novelist Pete Dexter has signed with Doubleday's Deb Futter for a two-book deal negotiated by Esther Newberg at ICM. Newberg reports that others in the Random group, including Random and Knopf, also made offers for the book, but Futter's went into seven figures, U.S. and Canadian rights only. First up in the deal is a book tentatively titled Train, after its protagonist.
Another recent Newberg sale was a mid-six-figure one for a new novel by sports columnist Mike Lupica. He's written fiction with a football setting (Bump and Run), has one coming out this fall on basketball (Full Court Press), and is now getting around to baseball. Putnam's Neil Nyren bought the so-far-untitled book, also for U.S. and Canadian.
