Meister to Putnam
Putnam's Rachel Kahan won North American rights to a new novel by Ellen Meister in an auction conducted by Andrea Cirillo at Jane Rotrosen. The book, The Silver Line, tells the story of a suburban mom expecting her second child who discovers that she might be able to slip through a wrinkle in time and return to her single life. When a routine sonogram reveals unexpected problems, her grief lures her to escape to the life that might have been—in which she discovers that she's stayed with her neurotic ex-boyfriend, and that her mother, who committed suicide several years before, is very much alive. Meister's previous books, The Smart One and Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA, were published by Morrow; Putnam will publish the new book in 2010, with a Berkley paperback to follow.
Schwartz Switches
John Burnham Schwartz, whose most recent novel, The Commoner, hit national bestseller lists for Nan Talese's Doubleday imprint, will move to Random House for two new novels. Amanda Urban at ICM made the North American rights deal with Random editorial director Kate Medina and editor-at-large David Ebershoff, and Ebershoff will edit. The first book in the contract, due to pub in 2011, will follow some of the characters from Schwartz's 1998 novel, Reservation Road, which was made into a RH film in 2006; the second novel is projected to appear in 2014.
A Real War Heroine
Alessandra Bastagli at Palgrave Macmillan acquired world English rights to Sheila Isenberg's life of Muriel Gardiner, titled Her War: The True Story of an American Heiress in the Resistance Against the Nazis. Will Lippincott at Lippincott Massie McQuilkin made the sale. Born in 1901 into great wealth (both her parents' families owned meat-packing businesses), Gardiner eventually became involved in an effort to smuggle Jews and antifascists out of Hitler's Vienna, helping form what became the International Rescue Committee. She later became a psychoanalyst and assisted in the creation of the Freud Archives. Gardiner's life story was allegedly purloined by Lillian Hellman, first in Hellman's own autobiography, Pentimento, and later in the Academy Award—winning film Julia. Isenberg will set the record straight in this authorized biography due out in 2010.
The Key to Success
Da Capo Lifelong executive editor Matthew Lore preempted world rights to The Winner's Brain: The Strategies Extraordinary Minds Use to Achieve Success (And You Can Use Them, Too) via Linda Konner in association with Harvard Health Publications. The authors—Jeff Brown, Psy.D., ABPP; Mark Fenske, Ph.D.; and Liz Neporent—will present an evidence-based approach to explain how a winner's brain operates differently from the average brain, thereby teaching readers how, through a variety of simple exercises, human brain functioning can be maximized. Brown and Fenske are colleagues at Harvard Medical School. Pub date is spring 2010.
Wiley Duo
Stephen Power at John Wiley bought North American rights to Steve Serby's untitled book on Brett Favre's first year with the New York Jets; Ian Kleinert at Objective Entertainment made the sale, and New York Post writer Serby will have the book ready for a late August 2009 pub date.
Power also bought a memoir by Marine 1st Lt. Thomas P. Daly's Rage Company: A Marine's Baptism by Fire, a first-patrol-to-last story about his service in Ramadi as part of Operation Squeeze Play, which defeated the insurgency there with the help of local Iraqis. E.J. McCarthy negotiated the North American rights deal, and pub date is slated for March 2010.
