Druids,
troubadours, wenches, and the golden-haired, green-eyed
Duchess of Aquitaine make for a rambunctious menagerie
who all wind up in Eleanor’s Bed, a first novel
that’s had ladies-in-waiting sighing all over France.
This medieval coming-of-age story from Mireille Calmel
unfolds in Poitiers in 1137, as young Eleanor of Aquitaine
strikes up a fast friendship with her fetching new lady-in-waiting,
Loanna. Unbeknownst to Eleanor, however, doe-eyed Loanna
descends from a line of druids — sired by Merlin, no
less — and has a few alchemical tricks of her own buried
in that plunging bodice. A dizzying decade of intrigue,
passion, and Crusades ends in the triumphal marriage
of Eleanor to Henry, destined to be King of England.
The 38-year-old Calmel, who hails from Aquitaine herself,
ransacked the historical record for her portrait of
fabled Eleanor (the book was five years in the making),
and seems to have Merlin on her side: she was stricken
with a mysterious, leukemia-like illness and pronounced
hopeless at the age of eight, but fully recovered 15
years later, conquering her affliction by “living in
the world of books.” The novel has been sold far and
wide in Germany, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, and
Poland, among other territories, but we’re told no deals
have been made in the US or UK. See Valerie-Anne
Giscard d’Estaing at XO Editions.
Meanwhile,
marital discord strikes in Denmark, where Bjarne
Reuter’s novel The Barolo Quartet details
the jarring matrimony of thirtysomething journalist
Anne and acclaimed concert pianist David. The tempo
takes a sharp swerve when debonair globe-trotter Lau
comes on the scene (he drops by to fix Anne’s flat tire
one day), and it soon becomes clear that hubby David’s
headed for a little “accident” involving a long flight
of stairs. Marital musicologists take note: as Anne
tells her new beau, “I get all my things back after
a divorce, which means a picnic hamper, a watercolor
from Hué, and Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, and Stan
Getz.” Author Reuter is a prolific Danish literary star
who has written more than 40 books, many of them for
teens. Rights to the latest have been sold only to Germany
(Heyne). Get yours today from Esthi Kunz
at Gyldendal.
Also in
Denmark, Where the Moon Lies Down by Iselin
C. Hermann is a novel “of the modern Middle East
stretched out between the past and the present.” Samia,
an American journalist, drops boyfriend Isaac and ships
out to Syria, where she was conceived while her father
was stationed there as a diplomat. Before long a triangular
game of fate is engaged, with the narrative passed on
like a baton among the main characters, including a
famous Arab Sufic musician named Jameel, for whom Samia
soon has the hots. Hermann’s first novel, Priority,
was considered “one of the most successful first novels
in Danish literature ever,” and became an international
hit published in 14 countries (including a Grove
edition in the US). That one chronicled “the sensuous,
poetic journey of two lovers who have never met, but
are on an inevitable collision course with destiny.”
Some 3,800 copies of the new one are in print, and all
rights are available from Ingelise Korsholm at
Rosinante Publishers.
Sweden’s
insatiable thirst for mayhem has been temporarily slaked
with Karin Alvtegen’s latest crime novel, Missing.
Police tracking a string of horrific murders carried
out by a bloodthirsty, possibly cannibalistic maniac
turn up prime suspect Sibylla: a beautiful and witty
young woman persecuted by the media and sent into a
slough of despond as a wrongfully accused pariah. How
she manages to outrun the cops and collar the killer
is a “truly cunning medico-legal puzzle,” with a bonus
subplot about the world of homelessness and the Swedish
welfare state. Dubbed the Nordic “Queen of Crime Writing,”
Alvtegen is set to be published in France (Plon),
Italy (Rizzoli), and Spain (Mondadori),
among other nations, and the author will be published
in English for the first time by Canongate in
2003. Alvtegen’s great aunt, incidentally, was the late
Swedish children’s author Astrid Lindgren. See
Niclas Salomonsson at the Salomonsson Agency
for rights.
In the
Netherlands, a “compelling road novel” about one man’s
travels on the seamy side of the street has been hooking
readers, though it’s just below the top ten this month.
Six Stars opens with Uncle Siem and faithful
nephew Justus, who run a magazine about hotels in Holland.
In their exploits among the nation’s hostelries, however,
Siem turns into a rampant adulterer, veering from boutique
bedrooms to roadside brothels and eventually turning
up dead in his apartment. Alas, the good nephew’s frantic
efforts to keep up appearances soon go awry. Author
Joost Zwagerman has published 14 books, with
several selling in excess of 100,000 copies, and critics
call his work “extremely smart and well put.” About
30,000 copies of the new one have been sold, with a
deal on tap in Germany. See Laura Susijn at the
Susijn Agency for rights.
Further
to Katarzyna Grochola’s ruthless siege of the
Polish list (see PT, 3/02), we’re told her latest,
Heart in a Sling, has just been published as
the second salvo in the hugely popular Frogs and
Angels series. The first volume, Never Again!,
has now sold 100,000 copies (with rights sold to ATS
in Russia, Heyne in Germany, and the Bertelsmann
club in Poland), while Heart in a Sling is up
to 75,000 and counting. That book extends the author’s
“landscape of femininity” as inhabited by journalist-heroine
Judyta, who must grapple with a topsy-turvy love life
and fend off her daughter’s teenage tantrums, all while
battling workaday anomie. Critics cited the first volume’s
“vibrant colloquial language” and deemed it “chatty
in the feminine fashion, yet not overly talkative.”
(A third Grochola title on the list recently, Application
for Love, is a collection of the author’s stories
written for women’s magazines.) See Wojtek Wodz
at WAB for rights.
And a final
note from Spain, where two enigmatic love stories intertwine
for the “exceptional and irresistible” title The
Daydreamer by Gustavo Martín Garzo. On one
hand, a young architect in Barcelona dumps his babe
for his blueprints, leaving the jilted lover adrift,
while on the other, the beautiful Adela is plunged into
tragedy in a Castilian town in the 1930s. The hyper-literate
Garzo won the Nadal Prize in 1999 for The
History of Marta and Fernando, and has been praised
for his “personal style, extreme sensitivity, and devotion
to the world of letters.” English-language rights to
the new one are open from Carmen Pinilla at the
Balcells agency.
