I Did It Because I Could
Plagiarist Wallops Germany, Big Brother
Is Watching in Italy, Dutch Golden Noose Nominee Smothers
the Competition
FROM PUBLISHING TRENDS (JULY 2004)
Hold
on to your Warranties and Indemnities clause and prepare
for a ride through the fraudulent world of a young waiter
who feigns authorship to impress one of his regular
customers, in Swiss author Martin Suter’s latest
book, Lila, Lila, which continues to rack up
sales in Germany. David spends his days slaving away
in a swanky bar and listening with envy to the literary
banter of the eloquent Ralph and his girlfriend Marie.
In the drawer of an old bedside cabinet, he discovers
the one thing that just might persuade Marie to give
him a second look — the handwritten text of an unpublished
novel entitled Sophie, Sophie, penned in the
1950s by an author named Alfred Duster. After scanning
it into his computer and making a single alteration
(to the by-line, of course), he gives it to Marie, who
immediately tells Ralph to hit the road and then submits
the manuscript to a small Frankfurt publisher without
David’s knowledge. Retitled Lila, Lila, the book
becomes a roaring success, but as David and Marie grow
closer, he becomes more and more fearful that his lie
will be exposed. Enter Jacky Stocker, an elderly alcoholic
from a nearby nursing home, who pulls David aside at
the end of a reading and announces that he is the real
author. Stocker threatens David with blackmail and takes
him for everything he’s worth, but a serious accident
ensues and, as he lies dying, Stocker confesses something
that may keep David’s secret safe forever. In a final
twist, the wily waiter learns his lesson by coming to
the realization that “the literary life is not just
a bed of canapés, especially when you haven’t earned
them.” Suter’s books have been translated into 12 languages,
including French (Christian Bourgois), Italian
(Feltrinelli), Spanish (Anagrama), and
Dutch (Signature).
Another Swiss author who is scoring big in Germany is
Urs Widmer, who “moves between humour, irony
and melancholy with the instinctive balance of a sleepwalker”
in a pair of novels loosely based on the lives of his
parents. Mother’s Lover is the tale of a woman
whose life is dominated by her passionate but unrequited
love for a famous conductor who has his own heart set
on founding an orchestra to play Bartók, Krenek
and Prokofiev. At the end of his life, he is
the richest man in the country (so much for starving
artists) and she is destitute, but still driven by her
obsessive love for him. Her husband is strikingly absent
throughout the book but this gap is filled by a second
complementary novel, My Father’s Book, in which
twelve-year-old Karl receives a blank diary for his
birthday and proceeds to fill the book every day for
the rest of his life. The book disappears after his
death and before his son, as tradition dictates, has
a chance to read it. Karl’s son retells his father’s
story as he imagines it, recalling the man’s deep passion
for literature, politics, and his wife. As the father
inwardly rambles through the world of Villon,
Diderot and Stendhal, he grows close to
a group of young artists united in their antifascist
beliefs, but his life ultimately becomes a model for
the disillusionment of the 20th century. Called “the
most light-footed and yet perhaps the most serious of
Swiss writers,” Widmer has been translated into 18 languages,
including French (Gallimard), Spanish (Siruela),
Italian (Bompiani), and Dutch (Byblos).
Contact Bettina Haydon at Diogenes for
rights to Widmer’s and Suter’s books.
Revealing some not-so-encouraging news from the 22nd
century, Italian songwriter Luciano Ligabue has
composed his contribution to a tradition of grim dystopian
writing of the Orwellian variety with Snow
Couldn’t Care Less. The governing Vidor Plan has
perfected a model for the happiness and well-being of
its adherents. Simply stated, citizens are granted eleven
rights, including the right to a partner for life as
well as access to a program of adulterous affairs (granted
on a case-by-case basis), and, in turn, they must promise
to keep themselves in perfect psychological and physical
health. Monitored by a carefully rigged system of micro-cameras
and satellites, citizens are brought into the world
at an advanced age and progress backwards toward a moment
of non-existence that precedes birth, all the while
knowing how much time they have left. Although all references
to maternity have been stricken from historical record,
one citizen, aptly named Nature, begins experiencing
what the bureaucracy assures her is a “hormonal dysfunction,”
but what turns out to be the first recorded pregnancy
in nearly a century. A covert visit from a prisoner
of the regime gives Nature and her partner the knowledge
they need to carry out the unthinkable. Rights to this
critique of the contemporary world are being offered
by Francesca Dal Negro at Feltrinelli.
Fans of Nicci French and Karin Fossum
are feasting their eyes on The Dinner Club, the
latest from the best-selling female Dutch crime writer
of all time, Saskia Noort (she’s also a freelance
columnist for Marie Claire, among other magazines).
A grand villa goes up in flames on a cold winter’s night
and Evert Struyck, a successful businessman and happily
married father of two, dies while his wife and children
escape to safety. His wife’s friend Karen steps in to
console the family, but soon discovers that the relationships
within the dinner club are not as unconditional as they
seem and that some people may even have profited from
Evert’s death. Recently nominated for Holland’s most
prestigious crime prize, The Golden Noose, this
“suspenseful thriller about a group of people...who
will defend success and happiness at any price” has
sold more than 100,000 copies thus far. Her first book,
Return to the Coast (a psychological thriller
about a young woman who terminates a relationship and
her pregnancy, and who must confront memories of her
past while a mystery attacker advances), was also nominated
for the prize. Rights to both books have been sold to
Rowohlt/Wunderlich (Germany) and a Dutch film
deal is in the works.
And this just in: Freelance journalist and long-time
New Yorker Elvin Post has just been awarded the
2004 Golden Noose for his debut novel, Green Friday.
Winston Malone, who lives with his wife in a seedy apartment
on Staten Island, is fed up with his job and becomes
involved with a shady crowd that includes an ice cream
man who also deals firearms, a dwarf with an all-star
wrestling past, and an enormously wealthy fan of Jerry
Springer who possesses a deep reverence for dating
services — all of whom are ready to duke it out for
an unclaimed two million dollars. Only on Staten Island.
Requests are flying in for reading copies and Chris
Herschdorfer at Ambo/Anthos (Holland) expects
the book to hit the bestseller list next week. Contact
him for rights to all three titles.
©2004
Publishing Trends
