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.
