A book that has already sold a million copies in Japan and won a prestigious literary award there for its 20-year-old author was swiftly preempted for U.S. rights by Julie Doughty at Dutton. It's Snakes and Earrings, a harrowing study of a teenage girl's descent into the Tokyo youth culture underworld by Hitomi Kanehana. Doughty made her deal with agent Jud Laghi at ICM, acting on behalf of the author's Japanese agent, Ken Mori at Tuttle-Mori.