Not So Foreign Family Problems Fill the Lists
The bright blue and red cover of YOU’RE JOKING, MONSIEUR TANNER (l’Olivier), French author Jean-Paul Dubois‘ most recent bestseller, shows a man on hands and knees who’s painted himself into a corner. This is Paul Tanner, a wildlife documentary filmmaker who suddenly inherits the grand family manse, but finds himself more cursed than blessed by the windfall. The short novel (198 pages) with brief snippets of chapters follows, with aplomb, Dubois’ previous phenomenon, A FRENCH LIFE, which won the Prix Femina in 2004 and sold an astounding 400,000 copies. As Monsieur Tanner embarks on his first journey into home renovation, he hires a group of oddball workers each with his own crazy set of personal tics that sets off all the others. The roofers, Pierre and Pedro, insist on bringing their ferocious dogs to the worksite while Astor, the flamboyant fashionista painter, works through the countless neuroses that keep him from concentrating on the job at hand. Igor, the Russian Catholic electrician, clashes with the boys who post the Pirelli calendar too close to where he prays. Amidst the turmoil, the house falls deeper and deeper into ruin in this French facsimile of The Money Pit. Dubois, a novelist as well as journalist (he’s currently the American correspondent for Le Nouvel Observateur) writes in the vein of Philip Roth and John Updike with similarly melancholy and disheveled male protagonists who are often attracted to more mature women and find themselves in existential predicaments. Since publication in January, the title has sold 141,000 copies. Korean rights have been sold to Balgunsesang. Contact Jennie Dorney for rights (jenniedorney@ seuil.com).
Inheriting the family home is bittersweet as well for Austrian Philipp Erlach, the protagonist of Arno Geiger‘s WE”RE DOING WELL (Hanser). His grandmother’s old house in suburban Vienna similarly falls into the lap of this passive and ambivalent 36 year-old writer. Grudgingly, Philipp begins to sort through the heaps of mementoes, heirlooms, and documents left after his estranged father, Peter, tosses much of them into the trash. As Philipp digs through the remnants, the story dips in and out of the present, moving back to 1938 when Philipp’s grandparents experience the rise of the Nazis, the annexation of Austria by the Third Reich, the death of their son, and the estrangement of their daughter, Ingrid, who insists on marrying Peter despite their wishes. Woven among the parallel stories is Ingrid’s struggle to be a successful doctor as well as maintain a household in 1950s Austria with no support from Peter or her alienated parents. Often frustrating and always flawed, the protagonists slip around each other with only the occasional, but touching moment of contact. The tightly knit storylines result in an intimate family portrait of historical events and daily life in twentieth-century Austria. Released in August, WE”RE DOING WELL recently won the German Book Prize for best novel in 2005 and has spent months on the German bestseller lists, including an unprecedented streak at number one on the Austrian list. With over 150,000 copies out, rights have been sold to Norway (Aschehoug), Netherlands (Bezige Bij), France (Gallimard), Italy (Bompiani), Spain including Catalan rights (Grup 62) and Denmark (Huset). Friederike Barakat is handling rights (barakat@hanser.de).
Despite the title, a king is only symbolically killed in THE REGICIDE (Gyldendal), a novel set in the elite “whiskey belt” north of Copenhagen during a tumultuous turnover in the government and an even more turbulent situation in the home of the losing Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gert, and his wife, Linda. The provocative title alludes to the novel’s focus on gender inequality and power imbalance, issues representative of the work of Danish author and international women’s rights advocate Hanne-Vibeke Holst whose literary work has earned her the Danish national book award and whose humanitarian efforts have qualified her to serve on the Board of Governors of the Danish Family Planning Association, UNESCO National Commission, and Face to Face. In THE REGICIDE, Holst examines the nature of power and presents an often thrilling portrait of “the mechanisms that bind assailant to victim in mutual dependence.” It is national election night in Denmark and as the results come in, it becomes clear that the Social Democratic Party will be ousted from power for the first time since 1920. In her pristine Copenhagen home, Linda bitterly watches the returns on television, drinking more Smirnoff as she realizes a humiliating political loss as well as a violent, perhaps deadly beating from her outraged husband are imminent. As she watches the concession speeches, she sees her husband grimace at the now deposed Prime Minister in the way he does during his most merciless attacks on her. The hateful grimace marks the start of not just a struggle for power, but a political blitzkrieg among current and former officials that upsets the scaffolding of Danish government and society. Part Thelma and Louise, part political thriller, THE REGICIDE seems to strike the right balance between a “spell-binding” plot and strong social commentary as it’s been at the top of the Danish bestseller list for months and sold over 75,000 copies since publication last Fall. THE CROWN PRINCESS, its predecessor, was recently launched as a TV serial in Denmark and Sweden. Rights to THE REGICIDE have been sold to Sweden (Bonnier), Norway (Piratforlaget), and Holland (Archipel). Contact Esthi Kunz for more information (Esthi_ kunz@gyldendal.dk).
Another well-known European women’s rights activist and journalist, Maria Stella Conte, has also written a provocative novel focusing on domestic violence and its repercussions. A journalist for LA REPUBBLICA, the Italian writer covers national news linked to the reality of children, teenagers, and women. Contrary to the title, THIRD PERSON SINGULAR (Baldini Castoldi Dalai) is written in the first person from the perspective of a young girl who creates a fantasy world full of fairies, dwarves, and angels to separate herself from the physical abuse she and her mother suffer at the hands of her father. Although they escape their hostile home, mother and daughter keep finding themselves in even more abusive situations until the protagonist, at thirteen, meets an almost thirty year-old police officer with whom she falls in love. Her mother breaks them up, but the girl spends years searching for him while trying to reconcile her fantasy world with reality. As one critic says, the language is “flat, without jolts, and neutral” in a way that emphasizes the girl’s naiveté. All rights are still available for Conte’s first novel. Contact Laura Molinari (laura@ bcdeditore.it).
