In a semiological
send-up worthy of a Roland Barthes essay, Christine
Orban falls head over heels into the gap between
le geste and la parole as her latest novel
The Silence of Men takes aim at the bestseller
list in France (it’s currently at #12). Described as
a marvel of “intense, concise writing” full of “musical
phrases like those of Duras,” the book is a lit-crit
lover’s take on pillow talk, exploring the stereotype
that women always need to verbalize their feelings,
while men just clam up. The scenario: Idylle has the
hots for the epically reticent Jean, a paragon of brooding
magnetism. But his lips are predictably sealed when
it comes to matters of the heart, and Idylle vents her
exasperation in rambling emails to pal Clémentine. Delving
into the perplexities of the feminine soul, Idylle realizes
that what counts is the language of love as much as
love itself, and confronts the ultimate amorous stumper:
“What if men simply don’t have anything to say? And
if the charm, precisely, is in their silence?” Accomplished
novelist Orban — who keeps a portrait of Virginia
Woolf close at hand for inspiration — lets wordplay
fly in her heroine’s quest for a happy medium between
mindless babble and monosyllabic retorts. The book has
sold more than 40,000 copies in France, with rights
sold to Germany (Pendo) and Turkey (Varlik
Yayinlari). Contact Lucinda Karter at the
French Publishers’ Agency for US rights.
Chick lit
fans are also rousingly occupied this month in Germany,
where journalist Ildikó von Kürthy hits the list
with Dial Tone. Annabel has suffered the same
boyfriend for years — and the same hairdo. Having just
traumatically turned 31, she embarks on a seven-day,
pick-me-up trip to loopy aunt Gesa’s lair in Mallorca,
hitting town on a Sunday morning. By that night she’s
already snared a handsome new beau, but Tuesday rolls
around and with it a svelte young babe with bedroom
eyes for Annabel’s new hunk. After gnashing her teeth
in lovers’ limbo, Annabel (and this can be safely revealed
without giving away too much) resolves to sport a revolutionary
new hairdo. Rights have been sold to Holland (Bruna),
Hungary (Mora), and Sweden (Wahlström).
Von Kürthy’s previous novels (including Late Night
Rate, a love story in the style of Ally McBeal
which was made into a movie released by Senator
Film) have sold in eleven countries including France
(J’ai Lu), Italy (RCS), Russia (Ultra-Kultura),
and Korea (Bookhouse). Contact Ariane Fink
at Sanford Greenburger for US rights.
Also in
Germany, Undine Gruenter evokes the transporting
power of place in the posthumously published collection
of fifteen short stories, Summer Guests at Trouville.
Deemed the author of “some of the most graceful and
melancholic books in modern German literature,” the
Cologne-born Gruenter (she moved to Paris in the 1980s)
depicts the annual migration of eccentric Parisians
to the beaches of Brittany and Normandy. More than 100
years after Monet captured the pristine Trouville beaches
on canvas, Gruenter concocts a “mysteriously strange
and strangely familiar” world with a roving cast of
artists, hucksters, and idlers including an eighty-year-old
dowager who returns to Trouville every year (greeted
by the same taxi driver) and a girl who uses a shady
summer house for her first erotic experiments. Though
the parasols of the Belle Epoque have long since folded
up, Gruenter’s nostalgia for summers by the sea is sustained
with “great narrative finesse.” Over 40,000 copies have
been sold to date, with rights currently being auctioned
in France. A previous book, Night Blind, was
published in France by Seuil; see Anne Brans
at Carl Hanser for rights.
A jigsaw
puzzle of legitimate clues and useless hearsay litters
The Night Sister, the fourth book in Unni
Lindell’s hugely popular crime series featuring
sagacious law enforcer Cato Isaksen. Topping the list
in Sweden this month, the book reportedly “glides in,
almost like a shot into a vein,” as 14-year-old Kathrine
Bjerke disappears from a road leading to the bustling
Oslofjord Tunnel on a late February evening. Only one
of thousands of passing drivers witnesses the abduction,
and police detective Isaksen tackles the case. Following
the success of Old Ladies Don’t Lay Eggs, Lindell
weaves her most intricate narrative to date, in which
a whole lineup of dodgy characters is suspected in Kathrine’s
disappearance — her stepfather, boyfriend, reclusive
uncle, plus a grandmotherly member of a local club for
the elderly — as well as for the possibly related murder
of her 75-year-old grandmother. Published originally
by Norway’s Aschehoug in the fall of 2002 (it’s
sold more than 90,000 copies), the book has been sold
to Sweden (Piratförlaget), Denmark (Lindhardt
og Ringhof), Finland (WSOY), France (Stock),
Germany (Scherz), and Holland (Bruna/Signature),
among other nations. Film/TV rights for the four novels
have gone to Denmark’s Nordisk Film, which will
start shooting in the very near future.
Finally,
in Italy, the husband-and-wife journalist team of Bice
and Nullo Cantaroni (writing under the nom de
plume Sveva Casati Modignani) offers the upscale
Harlequin of the moment in 6 April ’96, in which
a woman is attacked and brutally beaten in St. Mark’s
Church in Milan. Though few clues are left at the crime
scene (a key; a London tube ticket), a tattered black-and-white
photo provides a window into the stories of three generations
of women — Agostina, Rosanna, and Irene, each with a
steamy love story to tell. With an initial print run
of 110,000 copies, the book aims to follow in the footsteps
of the couple’s previous work, which includes 15 novels
selling over 10 million copies in 14 languages, among
them German (Weitbrecht), Russian (Eksmo),
Hungarian (Ifusagi Lapes), and Czech (Euromedia).
Shooting starts July 8 for a Spanish/Italian film version
of their 14th novel, Vanilla and Chocolate (in
which a husband and wife reflect on 18 years of marriage
after their relationship starts to sour), to be directed
by Ciro Ippolito and distributed by Warner.
No translation rights have yet been sold; contact Paola
Bagnaresi of Sperling & Kupfer.
