Tasmanian Devils
Australia’s Panty Line, France’s Tranquil Madness, and the Sub-Continent’s Al Pacino
As droves of Australians sashay into the pantry this month with the bestselling Marie Claire cooking title Food Fast, the rest of the literate world down under has been taking a peek under the Visible Panty Line with the newest from Australia’s comic superwoman, Gretel Killeen. After belting out a number of hilarious books for children (including the off-beat My Life is a Toilet, which details young love and pimple angst in the life of the 15-year-old Fleur), Killeen besieges the adult world with her latest collection of ornery columns from Australia Magazine. The title essay suggests that we ought to bring back the panty line, because in Killeen’s view wearing a g-string qualifies as sexual harassment. The book has been tickling the nation’s bestseller lists since it was published last November, and foreign rights are still grabbable: see Cathy Gillam at Penguin Books Australia. Continuing the tradition of vivid social commentary in Australia, cartoonist Michael Leunig is back with the long-awaited new collection Goatperson and Other Tales. The book is a compilation of previously uncollected material, and ponders the fate of the “goatperson,” a sort of Australian stand-in for the “everyman.” Or, as Leunig succinctly puts it, “Why do we do it? And, more to the point, who the hell are we, where are we going and where’s it all going to end?” Well, don’t look to us for answers. See Peg McColl at Penguin Books Australia for rights.
Probing parallel questions in Italy this month is Andrea de Carlo’s zen-like novel Here and Now, which details the cosmic awakening of Luca, a fortysomething man who manages a horse-riding center in the countryside north of Rome. Following a nasty fall from a horse one day, he gets up and realizes that he is “perfectly unhappy.” The tale of the ensuing quest for enlightenment involves a crazed woman named Alberta and is considered de Carlo’s “strongest and most commercial book yet,” according to our sources, selling more than 120,000 copies, hitting the Italian list at #3 last month, and peaking at #1. Rights negotiations have been launched in Germany, France, and Spain, with other territories still available, according to the Vicki Satlow Literary Agency in Milan.
Also in Italy, playwright and theater gadfly Marco Paolini has been bringing down the house all over again with the publication of Vajont, a book about Paolini’s fascinating and politically charged play of the same title. The theatrical work chronicles a terrible 1963 catastrophe in the village of Longarone, in which a land mass above the largest double-arc dam ever designed gave way, killing some two thousand people. The new book follows up the smashing home video release on the same subject. See Roberto Gilodi at Giulio Einaudi for rights.
Finally in Italy, a bout of humor rocks the list, beginning with Mondadori’s Paperodissea. The title loosely translates as The Odyssey of Donald Duck, in which the Disney character’s epic yearnings are presumably revealed. Also laughing all the way to the bestseller list, Baldini & Castoldi brings two humor books to the list, both by popular Italian comedians. Friends Ahrarara is written by Fichi d’India, the professional name of two comedians who are whooping it up all over Italy, and the dynamic duo Gino & Michele crawl onto the list with Also Ants . . . Get Mad 2000. The last installment, Also Ants in Their Small World, appeared on the bestseller list in November.
Christian Oster has meanwhile made off with the Prix Medici in France for his eighth novel, My Big Apartment. Known for his light, ironic works that investigate the “tranquil madness” that often runs rampant in our lives, Oster now examines the travails of a somewhat discombobulated narrator who has lost the keys to his apartment — and with them his girlfriend, too. He bumps into the very pregnant Flore at the local pool, and ends up as the child’s adoptive father. Narrated with an imperturbable and parodic wit, this one is Oster’s first big hit, with sales topping 60,000 in France. See Minuit for rights.
Canada is mourning the recent passing of novelist Matt Cohen, whose Elizabeth and After appears on the list this month. Cohen was a reviewer for The Globe and Mail, and was known for his occasionally convoluted but always learned disquisitions. Elizabeth and After won the Governor-General’s Award for Fiction in Ottawa last November, and chronicles the protagonist’s return to his small-town Ontario home, only to dredge up memories of the alcohol and violence that ended his marriage there. Rights have been sold to France (Phebus) with a separate French language deal completed for Canada (Boreal), and Picador USA will publish in August 2000. We’re told other rights are still available from Anne McDermid.
A blast from the recent past has shaken up India, where Pakistani author Bapsi Sidhwa’s Ice Candy Man is back in the limelight due to the release of the film 1947 Earth, which is based on the book. Ice Candy Man was published in 1989 by South Asia Books, and was issued as a US paperback under the title Cracking India by Milkweed. It is an 8-year-old girl’s story of the 1947 partition of India, when British India was split into India and Pakistan. The new film is directed by Deepa Mehta and stars Aamir Khan, allegedly the “Al Pacino of the sub-continent.”
The young jurors of the Nestlé Smarties children’s book prize, awarded by the Youth Libraries Group to books published in the UK, have tapped Louise Rennison’s Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, from the UK’s Piccadilly Press. The bronze-award-winning book is said to be a “delicious diary” based on the author’s childhood in Leeds. It features among other colorful characters the inimitable Angus, a “half-Scottish wildcat moggy who stalks next door’s poodle.” Rights have been sold to nine countries, among them France (Gallimard), Germany (Bertelsmann), and Italy (Mondadori). The book will be out in the US this spring from HarperCollins. See Piccadilly for rights.
A few final notes: The Surgeon of Crowthorne, which has been on the Australian list for eons, is actually The Professor and the Madman. And we observe that the new Harry Potter is due out July 8, 2000. Though as yet untitled (it’s referred to as Harry Potter 4), it will cost Amazon.co.uk’s buyers £10.99, and was recently #28 on the Amazon bestseller list — a full seven months before publication.
