Foreign Rights List Nonfic on and Fic on Frankfurt Book Fair 2020
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FOREIGN RIGHTS LIST
NARRATIVE NONFICTION: THE HARDEST PLACE BY WESLEY MORGAN ______3 LIGHTNING FLOWERS BY KATHERINE E. STANDEFER ______4 FATHOMS BY REBECCA GIGGS ______5 BRAVER THAN YOU THINK BY MAGGIE DOWNS ______6 MY MORNINGLESS MORNINGS BY STEFANY ANNE GOLBERG ______7
GENERAL NONFICTION: AN ETERNAL THOUGHT IN THE MIND OF GODZILLA BY PATRICK MACIAS ______8 STOP SAVING THE PLANET! BY JENNY PRICE ______9 READ ME, LOS ANGELES BY KATIE ORPHAN ______10
FICTION: THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING BY JAMIE HARRISON ______11 TUESDAY MOONEY TALKS TO GHOSTS BY KATE RACCULIA ______12 BEIJING PAYBACK BY DANIEL NIEH ______13 DOMINICANA BY ANGIE CRUZ ______14 THE LIGHTEST OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE BY KIMI EISELE ______15 HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Wesley Morgan, THE HARDEST PLACE: The American Military Adri in Afghanistan’s Pech Valley (Random House, March 2021)
A deeply reported and vivid history of the most violent region of Afghanistan by a noted young military journalist.
• Starred Reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Library Journal
Nonfic on; Finished manuscript available; 672 pages
• Morgan enriches his impressive research and insigh ul analysis with vivid wri ng and de character sketches. The result is a defini ve portrait of the epicenter of America’s longest war.—Publishers Weekly, starred review • Required reading for anyone who wants to understand the war in Afghanistan.—Kirkus Reviews, starred review • Within its accessible pages, readers can gain a be er understanding of an ongoing, yet o en forgo en war. An essen al, thoroughly reported work.—Library Journal, starred review • Morgan has wri en the defini ve account of America’s heroic but ul mately doomed effort in one of Afghanistan’s most rugged regions. His research is stunningly thorough, and his wri ng style absolutely irresis ble. If one book should be studied by the U.S. military for an unvarnished look at both their successes and failures, it should be this one.—Sebas an Junger, author of Tribe • Vividly wri en, exhaus vely researched and compulsively engaging, The Hardest Place marks Wesley Morgan’s arrival as one of America’s foremost military historians.—Evan Wright, author of Genera on Kill • Readers who want to understand the war in Afghanistan and the experiences of those who fight in their name should read Wesley Morgan’s impeccably researched and well told story. —H.R. McMaster, author of Ba legrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World • Wes Morgan spent ten years repor ng this story, and his digging and search for the truth have produced a compelling and meless tale of men at war.—Evan Thomas, author of First: Sandra Day O’Connor • Vivid, balanced, and comprehensive, The Hardest Place illuminates the endless American war in Afghanistan as few other ba le narra ves have. Wesley Morgan has wri en a saga of courage and fu lity, of valor and error and heartbreak.—Rick Atkinson, author of The Bri sh Are Coming • The Hardest Place is one of the best books telling the story of America’s longest war. —Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbo abad • A superb piece of wri ng…The book is a testament to the dedica on of American soldiers to a hopeless cause. —Emma Sky, Director Yale World Fellows and author of The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq Wesley Morgan was a 19 year old college student at Princeton University when he first embedded with U.S. and Bri sh troops in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan. He has spent the past decade traveling across remote valleys and to outposts built into harsh mountain terrain interviewing soldiers, commandos, and Afghans to capture the reality of an endless war through their eyes. Few U.S. troops can explain why they are s ll figh ng or what they have accomplished. A fascina ng and candid look at the tragic military history of the war in Afghanistan — the missteps that made each year harder for the troops cycling through than the last, the years-long hunts for individuals who did not ma er, and the heroic decisions made by infantry and commandos on the ground.
Wesley Morgan is a military affairs reporter who most recently covered the Pentagon for two and a half years at Politico. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in Washington, D.C., Iraq, and Afghanistan, contributing stories to The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Atlantic and other publications.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Katherine E. Standefer, LIGHTNING FLOWERS: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life (Li le, Brown/Spark, November 2020)
Lightning Flowers weighs the life-saving poten al of modern medical technology against its complicated mark on the author’s life, and against the social and environmental costs of the mining that makes such technology possible.
Nonfic on; Finished manuscript available; 288 pages *Publisher controls World rights
• A sharp examina on of the ways that a heart condi on affected the author’s life as well as those of strangers halfway across the world…Packed with emo on and a rare, honest assessment of the value of one’s own life, this debut book is a standout. An intensely personal and brave accoun ng of a medical ba le and the countless hidden costs of health care. —Kirkus Reviews, starred review • In her stunning debut, [Standefer] reveals how a single piece of supposedly lifesaving machinery has forever implicated her in ruinous global supply chains, how en re economies of extrac on have come to reside deep within her body. With great clarity and resilience, Lightning Flowers invites us to become in mate with the moral and environmental calculus of our own lives.—Francisco Cantú, author of The Line Becomes a River • Lightning Flowers is both a memoir and a mystery, a rive ng debut…She faces her own heart and the technological device that keeps it bea ng with the sharp eye of a journalist and the drama c pacing of a novelist. Following the supply chain from her body to conflict minerals in the Congo, we see how the world is interconnected and interrelated. Standefer is a lyrical writer who has cra ed an embodied text, understanding that our survival balances on the cliff edge of our complicity and our compassion.—Terry Tempest Williams, author of Erosion: Essays of Undoing • [Standefer] offers a full accoun ng of the cost of a single life, and it is nothing short of astonishing. She travels, literally, to both the brink of death and the edge of the world to discover exactly what it means to live. Her courage is palpable, on the page and in life. This book is u erly spectacular.—Rachel Louise Snyder, author of No Visible Bruises • There is an alchemy of tender magic and brute force in Standefer's wri ng.—Ann Neumann, author of The Good Death What if a lifesaving medical device causes loss of life along its supply chain? That’s the ques on Katherine E. Standefer finds herself asking a er being shocked by her implanted cardiac defibrillator for the first me. In this in mate memoir about the way illness changes a life and the global reverbera ons of the American medical system, Standefer recounts the story of the rare diagnosis that upended her life in the mountains of Wyoming and sent her tumbling—uninsured—into a maze of cardiology units, drama c surgeries, and slow, painful recoveries. As her life increasingly comes to revolve around the internal defibrillator wired into her heart, she becomes consumed with ques ons about the supply chain that allows such an ostensibly miraculous device to exist. So she sets out to trace its materials back to their roots. From the sterile labs of a medical device manufacturer in southern California to the sandy sha of a tantalum mine in Rwanda to a nickel and cobalt mine carved out of endemic Madagascar jungle, Lightning Flowers takes us on a global reckoning with the social and environmental costs of a technology that promises to be lifesaving but is, in fact, much more complicated. Deeply personal and sharply reported, Lightning Flowers takes a hard look at technological mythos, healthcare, and our cultural rela onship to death, raising important ques ons about our obliga ons to one another, and the cost of saving a life.
Katherine E. Standefer is the winner of the 2015 Iowa Review Award in Nonfiction, her essay "In Praise of Contempt" appears in Best American Essays 2016. Her other work has been published in or is forthcoming from The Normal School, Fourth Genre, The Iowa Review, The Colorado Review, Cutbank, The Indiana Review, Fugue, and The Rumpus, among many others. Standefer earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction Writing from the University of Arizona, where she teaches creative nonfiction. www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Rebecca Giggs, FATHOMS: The World in the Whale (Simon & Schuster, July 2020) Fathoms is an eloquent medita on on the awe-inspiring lives of whales, revealing what they can teach us about ourselves, our planet, and our rela onship to other species. • Kirkus Prize Finalist 2020: Nonfic on • New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Audible Editor’s Pick, July • Bookpage Editor’s Pick, August • One of Literary Hub’s Most An cipated Books of 2020 Rights: Australia/Scribe; Korea/Bada Nonfic on; Finished book available; 304 pages *Publisher controls World rights
• [A] delving, haunted and poe c debut.— New York Times Book Review • [Giggs’s] narra ve widens the aperture of our a en on with a literary style so stunning that the reader may forget to blink…In a story that extends across several con nents, Ms. Giggs marshals lapidary language to give the crisis a compelling voice. Her prose, like the oceans in which her subjects roam, is immersive; her sentences submerge us in a sea of sensa ons. A reader fond of dog-earing choice turns of phrase in Fathoms might find, at evening’s end, a book pleated like an accordion with an abundance of keepsakes.—Wall Street Journal • Masterly.—The New Yorker • Lyrical…Giggs’s wri ng has an old-fashioned lushness and elaborateness of thought. Its finest passages—and they are many— awaken a sense of wonder.—The Washington Post • Haun ng.—New York Post • Fathoms immediately earns its place in the pantheon of classics of the new golden age of environmental wri ng.—Literary Hub • Whether describing the majesty of the blue whale or the human assault on sea ecology due to paper and plas c pollu on, the author’s prose is poe c, beau fully smooth, urgently readable, and eloquently informa ve.—Kirkus Reviews, starred review • A work of bright and careful genius. Equal parts Rebecca Solnit and Annie Dillard, Giggs masterfully combines lush prose with conscien ous history and boots-on-the-beach repor ng.—Robert Moor, New York Times Bestselling author of On Trails • Fathoms took my breath away. Every page is suffused with magic and meaning. —Ed Yong, New York Times Bestselling author of I Contain Mul tudes • There is much to marvel at here…Deeply researched and deeply felt, Giggs’ intricate inves ga on, beau fully revelatory and haun ng, urges us to save the whales once again, and the oceans, and ourselves.—Booklist, starred review • It is Giggs’ poe c and insigh ul analysis that elevates this book into something unforge able… Her prose…is luminous. —Bookpage, starred review
What can whales teach us about the complexity, splendor, and fragility of life? Naturalist Rebecca Giggs sets out to answer that ques on a er watching a humpback whale slowly die on the beach in Australia. Fathoms: The World in the Whale blends natural history, philosophy, and science to explore: How do whales experience ecological change? Has technology transformed our connec on to these mythic animals? She writes about whales so rare they have never been named, whale songs that sweep across hemispheres in annual waves of popularity, and how whales have modified the chemical composi on of our planet’s atmosphere.
In the spirit of Rachel Carson and Rebecca Solnit, Giggs vividly explores the natural world even as she addresses the stakes in wri ng about nature in a me of environmental crisis. With depth and clarity, Giggs outlines the challenges we face as we a empt to understand the perspec ves of other living beings, and our own place on an evolving planet. Evoca ve and inspiring, Fathoms marks the arrival of an essen al new voice.
Rebecca Giggs is an award-winning writer from Perth, Australia. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Atlan c, The New York Times Magazine, Best Australian Essays, Best Australian Science Wri ng, and other publica ons. Fathoms is her first book.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Maggie Downs, BRAVER THAN YOU THINK: Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother’s) Life me (Counterpoint Press, May 2020)
At age 34, newly married and established in her career as an award-winning newspaper journalist, Maggie Downs quits her job, sells her belongings, and embarks on the solo trip of a life me: Her mother’s.
• Audio rights to Brilliance Audio • Must Read Lists: Publishers Weekly, Evening Standard, PopSugar, Be er, Dandelion Chandelier, Cupcakes and Cashmere
Nonfic on; Finished book available; 304 pages *Publisher controls World rights
• Maggie Downs is Braver Than You Think—and braver than she thinks…This is a book about love and loss, yes, but also about survival, about curiosity and determina on, and about how to thrive when the world seems suddenly to hold no certainty. I devoured this book in one si ng, and closed its last pages enriched, moved, and inspired. You will be, too.―Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body • Compelling and moving, Downs’s memoir will appeal to fans of travel wri ng and anyone who has walked with a loved one through a difficult decline.—Shelf Awareness, starred review • Fans of Eat, Pray, Love and Wild may find this a sa sfying next read.—Booklist • With a mother in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, Maggie Downs tries to run from her grief, but instead takes us to the far reaches of the globe, cuddling (and being bi en) by endangered monkeys, bonding with elephants, and working to save sea turtles. It’s a journey to make any of us wonder if we’re braver than we think. —Pulitzer Prize winner Diana Marcum, author of The Tenth Island • What a gorgeous book—full of adventure and suspense—I’d follow Maggie Downs anywhere. She’s not just intrepid, she’s excellent company: funny, deep, vulnerable, exquisitely honest, and such a good writer. Downs is the hero we need now— one to inspire each of us to be our best self and live our best life.—Dinah Lenney, author of The Object Parade • In prose so vivid that I felt the coral cu ng her feet in the Red Sea, the sharp fangs of a monkey as his teeth hit her flesh, and the devasta on of losing her mother, Maggie Downs proves she’s a great stylist and a great storyteller. If you want an adventure story, a love story, a story about losing a parent or about becoming one—or if you’re simply looking for a great read—Braver Than You Think is your book.—Jeannie Vanasco, author of Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl • The most moving scenes are about her mother in the grip of Alzheimer’s, and the result is an affec ng and hard-to-put- down medita on on life and grief.—Michael Sco Moore, author of The Desert and The Sea • A brave story of one woman’s love journey to honor and mourn her mother and to find herself in the process. There’s something here for everyone–equal parts travel adventure and adventure of the heart. A triumphant book! —Karen Rinaldi, author of It’s Great to Suck at Something: The Unexpected Joy of Wiping Out and What It Can Teach Us About Pa ence, Resilience, and the Stuff That Really Ma ers Over the course of one year backpacking through seventeen countries—visi ng all the places her mother, struck with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, cannot visit herself—Maggie faces some of the world’s most exo c locales while confron ng the slow loss of her mother and the close bond they shared. Interweaving travelogue with memories of her family, Braver Than You Think takes the reader hiking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu, whitewater ra ing down the Nile, volunteering at a monkey sanctuary in Bolivia, praying at an ashram in India, and fleeing the Arab Spring in Egypt. By embarking on a global journey, Downs embraces what it means to make every moment count—traveling around the globe and home again, losing a parent while discovering the world.
Maggie Downs is a writer, mother, and adventurer based in Palm Springs, California. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Today.com, and Racked, among other publica ons. She holds an MFA in crea ve nonfic on from the University of California Riverside-Palm Desert. Braver Than You Think is her first book.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Stefany Anne Golberg, MY MORNINGLESS MORNINGS (Unnamed Press, March 2020)
Equal parts coming-of-age memoir, art history, and philosophical inquiry, My Morningless Mornings is one woman’s reckoning with sleeplessness.
• Must Read Lists: Electric Literature, Chicago Review of Books, The Sea le Times, Entropy Mag, Buzzfeed Books, BookRiot
Nonfic on; Finished book available; 160 pages
• Hypno cally wri en and impressively weird, My Morningless Mornings is an intense and harrowing medita on on Stefany Anne Golberg's youthful insomnia. More than that, though, it's a moving mini-portrait of the bond between a father and his daughter. I really loved this book.—Tom Bissell, author of Apostle and co-author of The Disaster Ar st • If you’re a er something kind of cerebral and medita ve for the middle of the night…Stefany Anne Golberg’s memoir-cum- philosophy book My Morningless Mornings is here for you…It’s a short and meandering read perfect for the dark hours. —Electric Literature • This is a book that works on the reader's mind so that a er you finish it, the world around you seems changed, revealed to be more mysterious, fascina ng, illuminated, and alive than you had realized before. It moves fluidly from one object of contempla on to another, giving each a gentle, de a en on that makes it at once familiar and strange. —Emily Mitchell, author of The Last Summer of the World and Viral: Stories • This extraordinary li le book is a cabinet of wonders. Golberg's quest to understand her rela onship with the night and her insomnia takes her outward and inward simultaneously, from the deepest realms of her personal history to her brilliant notes on literature, art, and film. Like Pa Smith's Woolgathering, Golberg's My Morningless Mornings transforms seeming mundani es into magic by viewing life through an ar ul lens that makes everything feel novel. Pure alchemy. —J. M. Tyree, co-author of Our Secret Life in the Movies • Golberg brings her razor intellect, eclec c reading, and vast imagina on to bear. Are we awake, or are we asleep? Did we dream this book, or did we dream us? Is this the most haun ng thought on earth—or the most hopeful?: ‘We wake in the morning with the sense that there’s something we're supposed to do, but this something has no name.' —Heather King, author of Parched, Shirt of Flame, and Ravished
“Sleeplessness was my great discovery, darkness my perfect world.” As a teenager from a troubled family living outside Las Vegas, Stefany Anne Golberg chooses to separate herself from the everyday world around her. She is alone with the night, resis ng the fundamental unit by which we measure our lives: the next day itself. Weaving together metaphor and myth, art and psychology, Golberg explores what wakefulness really means. Why 3 am is when most crimes are commi ed, when fevers either break or triumph, why it is known as “the hour of the wolf.” My Morningless Mornings is a startling and lyrical inquiry into the liminal space between night and day, bringing together ideas about the psyche from Jung and Ingmar Bergman, the fantas cal wri ng of Jules Verne and Bram Stoker, and the dark pain ngs of Breugel. Like On Immunity, Eula Biss’ fascina ng inquiry into fear and vaccines, My Morningless Mornings examines what consciousness means and why insomnia may be a state to celebrate rather than dread.
Stefany Anne Goldberg is a mul -media ar st who co-founded Flux Factory, an arts collec ve in Brooklyn. Along with her husband Morgan Meis, she published Dead People, a series of eulogies about cultural icons, praised by Adam Gopnik, Tom Bissell, and Keith Gessen among many others. She has wri en for The Washington Post, Lapham's Quarterly, and the New England Review. She lives in Detroit where she has created a public art museum in her house named the Huckleberry Explorer's Club.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020
Patrick Macias, AN ETERNAL THOUGHT IN THE MIND OF GODZILLA (Sutherland House, Spring 2022)
Nonfic on; Proposal available; Sample pages available 2021 *Publisher controls World English rights
An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla by Patrick Macias is part travel memoir, part pop culture obsession. A commentary on Japanese culture and recent history, it features the author’s observa ons and anecdotes about living in Japan and immersing himself in movies, music, fashion, and local lore, as well as his thoughts on his own lifelong interest in Japanese culture and society. The book is based on his popular blog of the same name.
Beneath the civilized façade of 21st century Japan is a world of strange subcultures —where anime fans, fashionistas, musicians, cosplayers, and people in the margins seek to fulfill their desires and dreams.
Writer and editor Patrick Macias spent years searching through the deep end of Japanese pop culture for adventures and insights not found in the usual guidebooks. An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla is the culmina on of years of wri ng and repor ng — a decade-spanning collec on that forms an alterna ve look at Japan filled with humor, the bizarre, and the unexpected.
From the dark side of anime otaku to interviews with top crea ves (and occasional detours into maid cafes), An Eternal Thought in the Mind of Godzilla brings a unique perspec ve to the “Cool Japan” phenomenon that will fascinate both the curious onlooker and the hardcore fan.
Patrick Macias is the founding editor of Otaku USA magazine. He is also the author of several non-fic on books including TokyoScope, Anime City, Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno: Tokyo Teen Fashion Subculture Handbook, and Otaku in USA: Love & Misunderstanding. His recent work includes a series of fic on collabora ons with Japanese ar sts including Paranoia Girls and PARK Harajuku: Crisis Team which was adapted into the interna onally distributed anime series URAHARA in 2017. Born in California, Patrick currently lives in Japan.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020
Jenny Price, STOP SAVING THE PLANET!: An Environmentalist Manifesto (W. W. Norton, April 2021)
A short, fun, fierce manifesto for a fairer, more effec ve environmentalism (with a lot less shopping!).
Nonfic on; Sample pages available; 128 pages *Publisher controls World rights
• Flight Maps is Jenny Price's "challenging book on the ways in which Americans have tried to ar culate their on- again, off again connec ons to the natural world.—New York Times Book Review on Flight Maps
• Flight Maps will provoke and excite you. Humor, self-scru ny and a passion for ideas light up (its) pages. —Los Angeles Times Book Review on Flight Maps
We’ve been “saving the planet!” for decades now, and the crises have only go en worse. Many of us— environmentalists included—con nue to live deeply unsustainable lives. At home, affluent Americans “buy green”; while at work, they maximize profits with dirty energy and toxic industries that are poisoning our poorer communi es.
With brevity, humor, and plenty of a tude, Jenny Price tracks “save the planet!” enthusiasm through strategies that range from ridiculously ineffec ve (Prius-buying and carbon trading) to flat-out counterproduc ve (greenwashing, and public subsidies to greenwash). We need to imagine far be er ways to use and inhabit environments. Why aren’t we cleaning up the messes we’ve already made? And why do so many people hate environmentalists? Price offers trailblazing answers, along with powerful ideas for how to divest from self-destruc on and invest in mutual survival.
Jenny Price has a B.A. from Princeton and a PhD from Yale in history. Her first book Flight Maps: Adventures with Nature in Modern America (Basic Books) is used as a textbook for American Studies, Environmentalism, and other disciplines. She's wri en for Audubon Magazine, The Believer, The Los Angeles Times, Sunset Magazine and has taught at Princeton, Yale, UCLA, USC, Duke University. She is currently a research fellow at the School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Ka e Orphan, READ ME, LOS ANGELES: Exploring L.A.’s Book Culture (Prospect Park Books, March 2020) A wi y and insigh ul book on the culture, people, humor, and zeitgeist of L.A.
• A Los Angeles Times Bestseller • Must Read Lists: Smithsonian Magazine Online, Entropy Mag
Nonfic on; Finished book available; 224 pages *Publisher controls World English rights
• The book is a cha y guide to literary tourism in the city but it has surprising depth…While Read Me is a light romp, it has the poten al to open new doors to familiar territory.—Alta Magazine • [Orphan] has created a reference guide that is deserving of a spot on the bookshelf of any bookworm. —Smithsonian Magazine Online
Read Me, Los Angeles is a colorful, lively, and informed celebra on of all things bookish in L.A. past and present, including interviews with current L.A. writers; day trips in search of favorite fic onal characters, from Marlowe to Weetzie Bat; author quotes galore; curated lists of the must-read Los Angeles books; a look at where writers have lived and worked in the City of Angels; and insight into the city’s book fes vals, bookstores, publishers, literacy nonprofits, libraries, and more. Rich with photographs, book images, and vintage maps, it’s an essen al addi on to travel books on Los Angeles. Selected writers showcased in Read Me, Los Angeles: Eve Babitz, David Ulin, Luis Valdez, Naomi Hirahara, Raymond Chandler, Ray Bradbury, Octavia Butler, John Fante, Charles Bukowski, James M. Cain, Joan Didion, Liska Jacobs, Jerry Stahl, and more!
Ka e Orphan is the former manager of The Last Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles, where she worked for a decade. The co-author of The Last Bookstore’s guide to downtown L.A. and the author of the recurring feature “Drinking with the Ghost” for the Los Angeles Review of Books, she’s been a long me literary explorer. She earned a BA in English literature from Whitworth University and an MA in literature and history from the University of Sheffield, where she focused on travel wri ng and literary tourism. She lives in Los Angeles.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Jamie Harrison, THE CENTER OF EVERYTHING (Counterpoint Press, January 2021)
A compelling saga from the award-winning author of The Widow Nash, The Center of Everything offers a stunning and hear elt examina on of the deep bonds of family and how the ones we’ve loved and lost echo throughout our lives.
• Audio sold to Blackstone Audio • Featured on Spine Magazine’s list of “Book Covers We Love”
Fic on; Galley available; 250 pages
• The Center of Everything is a bighearted, feet-on-the-ground, bracing, intelligent book. Its people will endure in
readers' memories, page a er compelling page.—Thomas McGuane • A sharply intelligent, warmhearted embrace of human imperfec on–the kind of book that invites a second reading. –Kirkus Reviews, starred review • The Center of Everything slips de ly through me, all the while taking the reader to the marvelous unfolding of secrets (both wondrous and murderous) that were right before our eyes. How beau fully our a en on is distracted and illuminated in this resonant novel.—Joan Silber, author of Improvement • This doesn't feel like a work of fic on. It feels real, like reading someone's diary. I'm le convinced that these characters have immortal souls, and I find comfort in their familiarity. I want to spend more me in their world, urging them to whisper their secrets in my ear. A brilliant book—I wish I could write like this. —Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bi er and Sweet For Polly, the small town of Livingston, Montana is a magical ecosystem of extended family and raw, natural beauty governed by kinship networks that extend back genera ons. But the summer of 2002 finds Polly at a crossroads. A recent head injury has sca ered her percep on of the present, resurfacing events from thirty years ago and half a country away. As Polly’s rela ves arrive for a reunion during the Fourth of July holiday, a beloved friend goes missing on the Yellowstone River, drudging up difficult memories for a family well acquainted with tragedy. As search par es comb the river, Polly excavates her memories, and over the course of one fateful week arrives at a deeper understanding of herself and the secrets of her larger-than-life family.
Weaving together the past and the present, bounded by the brisk shores of Long Island Sound and the picturesque but ruthless landscapes of big sky Montana, The Center of Everything examines with profound insight the nature of the human condi on: the tribes we call family, the memories and touchstones that make up a life, the allure of revenge, and the loves and losses we must endure along the way.
Jamie Harrison, THE WIDOW NASH (Counterpoint Press, June 2016) A masterful, exuberant novel about fathers and daughters and the search for the true meaning of independence. • A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice • PNBA Indie Bound Bestseller • 2017 Reading the West Award: Fic on • NPR’s Morning Edi on/Nancy Pearl Summer Reading List • Must Read lists: Entertainment Weekly, PureWow, Publishers Weekly, Book Riot, Newsday Fic on; Finished book available; 384 pages
Jamie Harrison has lived in Montana with her family for almost thirty years. She has worked as a caterer, writer, and as a technical editor for archaeological, botanical, and biological reports. She won the 2017 “Reading the West Award” for Best Fic on for her novel The Widow Nash, a PNBA Indie Bound Bestseller. She is the daughter of Jim Harrison.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Kate Racculia, TUESDAY MOONEY TALKS TO GHOSTS (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Paperback October 2020) A handsome stranger. A dead billionaire. A citywide treasure hunt. Tuesday Mooney’s life is about to change…forevermore. • Kirkus Best Fic on of 2019 • Indie Next October 2019 • Apple Books Best Books of October 2019 • LibraryReads October 2019 • New York Post Best Book of the Week • Must Read lists: Bookish, Hey Alma, CrimeReads, Buzzfeed, Libro.FM • Bellweather Rhapsody op oned by TNT Rights: The Netherlands/de Fontein; UK/Harper UK Author Previously Published by: Brazil/Globo; Germany/Blanvalet; Spain/Salamandra Fic on; Finished book available; 359 pages
• A quirky mix that delves into how grief affects us and how friendships and romance turn on a dime, yet it does so with disarming, o en deliciously acerbic humor…Rollicking...The emerging messages are bright: Be generous now. Don’t cheat your friendships. Become the person you’re looking for.—Minneapolis Star Tribune • An entertaining novel about ghosts, grieving and friendship. Acerbic and quirky…Entertaining.—Toronto Star • Rarely does a novel so suffused with death radiate as much life as this spirited—in every sense of the word—genre- bending adventure from Racculia.—Publishers Weekly, starred and boxed review • A roaring adventure novel that never loses sight of adulthood’s woes…Thrilling, roman c, and charming…a love le er to former witchy girls and compulsive dreamers that will make readers reassess what—and who—they value. Spooky, wi y, and observant, Racculia’s novel of friendship and bigger-than-life aspira ons is a treasure. —Kirkus Reviews, starred review • A deligh ul cast of characters, twisty in the best way, and if you are someone who was into puzzles, this is 100% for you. —Hey Alma • A sharp, hear elt story about loners working together for the sake of a shared adventure.—Booklist • Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is at once a quirky ghost story, an addic ve adventure tale, a love le er to the city of Boston, and, at its center, a story about grieving, in macy, and what it means to be a true friend. I loved every page of this smart, exuberant book, from its intriguing start to its hear elt finish.—Louise Miller, author of The Late Bloomers’ Club • Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is a story like no other. This tale of a high-stakes scavenger hunt—and the complex inner lives of those compe ng—is wi y, exci ng, and absolutely rive ng. Before you know it, you’ll be playing the game right along with the characters, and with your full heart. I loved this.—Kayla Rae Whitaker, author of The Animators • Kate Racculia has created a host of wonderful odd-ball and eccentric characters, not least Tuesday Mooney herself: smart, vivacious, and beguiling. I was swept up in her crazy treasure hunt through Boston, looking for ghosts—real and imagined. A book for the curious and spirited.—Claire Fuller, author of Bi er Orange Tuesday Mooney is a loner. She keeps to herself, begrudgingly socializes, and spends much of her me watching old Twin Peaks and X-Files DVDs. But when Vincent Pryce, Boston’s most eccentric billionaire, dies—leaving behind an epic treasure hunt through the city, with clues inspired by his hero, Edgar Allan Poe—Tuesday’s adventure finally begins. Puzzle-loving Tuesday searches for clue a er clue, joined by a ragtag crew: a wisecracking friend, an adoring teen neighbor, and a handsome, cagey young heir. The hunt tests their me le, and with other teams from around the city also vying for the promised prize—a share of Pryce’s immense wealth—they must move quickly. Pryce’s clues can’t be cracked with sharp wit alone; the searchers must summon the courage to face painful ghosts from their pasts (some more vivid than others) and discover their most guarded desires and dreams. A deliciously funny ode to imagina on, overflowing with love le ers to art, from The Wes ng Game to Madonna to the Knights of the Round Table, Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts is the perfect read for thrill seekers, wanderers, word lovers, and anyone looking for an escape to the extraordinary.
Kate Racculia grew up in New York where she played bassoon in her high school band and voraciously read Mary Higgins Clark, Agatha Christie, and Ellen Raskin. Her novel Bellweather Rhapsody won an Alex Award in 2015 and she was shortlisted for the New York Public Library Young Lions Award. Kate received her MFA from Emerson College and is the author of This Must Be the Place and Bellweather Rhapsody. www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Daniel Nieh, BEIJING PAYBACK (Ecco, Paperback April 2020) A fresh, smart, fast-paced revenge thriller about a college basketball player discovering shocking truths about his Chinese family in the wake of his father’s murder. • PBS News Hour/New York Times Book Review Now Read This book club pick for August • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • Must Read lists: New York Times, BBC, USA Today, CrimeReads, Bookish, BookRiot, Literary Hub, The Oregonian, The Sea le Times • On NPR’s All Things Considered • Read Nieh’s essay on Hong Kong and his immigrant father in The Washington Post • TV/Film rights op oned by Fernando Chien and Sam Hargrave (Avengers Endgame) Rights: UK/Harper UK Fic on; Finished book available; 320 pages
• A propulsive first novel that aims to entertain…highly enjoyable. It sets up a sequel that I very much look forward to reading.―The New York Times • Nieh’s Victor is wi y, passionate, compe ve, honourable, and courageous enough to face some of the deadliest players in the Beijing underworld as he confronts his father’s past in this superb, sophis cated thriller.―BBC • [A] remarkable debut…Nieh, a Chinese-English translator, has a real gi for language…This impressive blend of crime and coming-of-age marks Nieh as a talent to watch.―Publishers Weekly, starred review • Daniel Nieh de ly recasts the immigrant novel as a sharp revenge thriller centered on a sunny SoCal kid who goes from playing college and hoops to uncovering his father’s murderer. The clash between past and present, between the homeland his father escaped and the new home he dreamt up for his family, is richly layered and deeply affec ng. ―Jade Chang, bestselling author of The Wangs vs. the World • A fast-moving, electric thriller that will remind you why you love the genre. I don’t know where Daniel Nieh has been hiding all these years, but he arrives here fully formed, a writer already at the top of his game. ―Tod Goldberg, New York Times bestselling author of The House of Secrets and Gangsterland • The best China thriller I've ever seen—a propulsive nail-biter that roars with seamless confidence into a China most Western authors can barely penetrate.―Nicole Mones, author of The Last Chinese Chef • Beijing Payback is crime fic on with a sympathe c heart—an emo onally layered story of murder, secrets, betrayal, and a son’s loss of innocence about the father he thought he knew.―Los Angeles Review of Books • First- me novelist Nieh is a Chinese-English translator and widely traveled, and his Beijing scenes are gri y and scary.―Library Journal • Daniel Nieh is a true Renaissance Man: when he’s not wri ng fic on, he works as a translator and model, and brings all his skills to the table in this ultra-stylish debut thriller that’s equal parts Hong Kong ac on movie and fish-out-of-water cross- cultural noir.―CrimeReads • Nieh, himself the son of a Chinese immigrant, has great fun twis ng the trope of the immigrant-parent with a devasta ng past in this page turner.―The Oregonian Victor Li is devastated by his father’s murder, and shocked by a confessional le er he finds among his father’s things. His father was never just a restaurateur—in fact he was part of a vast interna onal crime syndicate that formed during China’s leanest communist years. Victor travels to Beijing, finding clues to his father’s secret criminal life, confron ng decades-old grudges, and a shocking new enterprise the organiza on wants to undertake. Standing up against it is what got his father killed, but Victor remains undeterred. He enlists his growing network of allies and friends to finish what his father started, no ma er the costs.
Daniel Nieh is a Chinese-English translator working in China since 2008. He majored in East Asian languages at the University of Pennsylvania and received a Thouron Award from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, where he earned a Masters degree in Chinese Studies with dis nc on. He has worked as a model in China and the United States. www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Angie Cruz, DOMINICANA (Fla ron Books, Paperback August 2020) An urgent, beau fully told novel about a Dominican teenager’s arranged marriage and immigra on to New York City, set against the poli cal turmoil of the 1960s. • Shortlisted for the UK Women’s Prize for Fic on 2020 • Good Morning America’s inaugural GMA Cover to Cover Book Club pick • YALSA 2020 Alex Award Winner • Book of the Month Club August 2019 • Indies Next September 2019 • Longlisted for an Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence: Fic on, Aspen Words Literary Prize, and the 2020 Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Literary Prize • Best Book Lists: Real Simple, Audible, NBC, Esquire, Apple Books, Amazon, Chicago Review of Books, HelloGiggles, AARP, The Washington Post • Film rights op oned by A24 Rights: Italy/Solferino; Turkey/Bilgi; UK/John Murray; World Spanish/Seven Stories Press, Siete Cuentos Fic on; Finished book available; 319 pages *Publisher controls World rights
• Lovely…Compelling…An in mate portrait of the transac onal nature of marriage and the economics of both womanhood and ci zenship, one all too familiar to many first-genera on Americans. —New York Times Book Review • Through a novel with so much depth, beauty, and grace, we, like Ana, are forever changed. —Jacqueline Woodson, Vanity Fair • Poignant…In nimble prose, Cruz animates the simultaneous reluctance and vivacity that define her main character as she a empts to balance filial duty with personal fulfillment, and contends with leaving one home to build another that is both for herself and for her family.―The New Yorker • Triumphant...The journey of Ana Canción is one of the most evoca ve and empowering immigrant stories of our me.―NBC • Ana’s engrossing, lyrically told story illuminates both the pain and the poten al triumph of the immigrant experience.―People • Sensa onal…At once tender, musical, and electric, this novel meditates on how immigra on shapes lives, from both without and within.―Esquire • The heroine of this wondrous fish-out-of-water story tries to hold steady, knowing ‘a well-placed rock in a river changes the current.'―O, the Oprah Magazine Ana Canción never dreamed of moving to America. But when Juan Ruiz proposes and promises to take her to New York City, she must say yes. Their marriage is an opportunity for her en re family to eventually immigrate from the Dominican Republic. So on New Year’s Day, 1965, fi een year old Ana leaves behind everything she knows and becomes Ana Ruiz, a wife confined to a cold apartment. Lonely and miserable, Ana plans her escape, un l César, Juan’s free-spirited younger brother, convinces her to stay. As the Dominican Republic slides into poli cal turmoil, Juan goes back, leaving César to take care of Ana. Suddenly, Ana is free to take English lessons, lie on the beach at Coney Island, dance at the Audubon Ballroom, and imagine a different kind of life in America. When Juan returns, Ana must decide once again between her heart and her duty to her family.
Angie Cruz is the author of Soledad and Let It Rain Coffee, a finalist in 2007 for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She has published work in The New York Times, VQR, Gulf Coast Literary Journal, and other publica ons, and has received fellowships from the New York Founda on of the Arts, Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony. She is founder and editor in chief of Aster(ix), a literary and arts journal, and is an associate professor of English at the University of Pi sburgh. Dominicana is inspired by her mother’s story.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected] HILL NADELL LITERARY AGENCY Frankfurt Book Fair 2020 Kimi Eisele, THE LIGHTEST OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE (Algonquin Books, Paperback June 2020) The Lightest Object in the Universe is a story about resilience and adapta on, a testament to the power of community, where our best traits, born of necessity, begin to emerge. • 2020 Reading the West: Adult Fic on nominee • Real Simple Best Book of 2019 • Summer 2019 B&N Discover Great New Writers • Indies Next July 2019 • Must Read Lists: Real Simple, Nylon, Parade Magazine, Reader’s Digest, Alta, Library Journal, The Millions • TV rights op oned by Universal (UCP) Fic on; Finished book available; 320 pages *Publisher controls World rights
• A compellingly realis c depic on of the world a er the collapse of civiliza on, although at its heart, it is a love story told in the vein of Cold Mountain…The Lightest Object in the Universe is an intriguing and engrossing debut novel that will leave readers thinking about their own ability to survive, their own capacity for love, and their willingness to face catastrophe with hope.—New York Journal of Books • In The Lightest Object in the Universe, author Kimi Eisele explores how humanity would have to evolve, relying on hope and love to ul mately sustain humankind.—Associated Press • A story of hope, resilience, and being human.—Nylon • It might be an oxymoron to call an apocalyp c novel hopeful, but The Lightest Object in the Universe is a testament to the power of love in the darkest mes. There’s horror, yes, but more moments of ingenuity, generosity, and grace. I couldn’t put it down.—Sheri Holman, author of The Dress Lodger • Filled with luminous wri ng and messages of love and hope.—Library Journal • A tale told in sentences starkly declara ve of the gone world they describe, The Lightest Object in the Universe offers characters that linger long a er the final page is turned. This is a novel with that exact balance of heart and momentum. Dazzling.—Chris an Kiefer, author of Phantoms • A near-future apocalypse forms the backdrop for an intense, moving romance in Eisele’s smart debut…Fans of Sta on Eleven will par cularly enjoy this hopeful vision of a postapocalyp c world where there is danger, but also the possibility for ideas to spread, community to blossom, and people to not just survive, but thrive. —Publishers Weekly What if the end mes allowed people to see and build the world anew? This is the landscape that Kimi Eisele creates in her surprising and original debut novel. Evoking the spirit of such monumental love stories as Cold Mountain and the crea ve vision of novels like Sta on Eleven, The Lightest Object in the Universe tells the story of what happens a er the global economy collapses and the electrical grid goes down. In this new world, Carson, on the East Coast, is desperate to find Beatrix, a woman on the West Coast who holds his heart. Working his way along a cross-country railroad line, he encounters lost souls, clever opportunists, and those who believe they'll be saved by an evangelical preacher in the middle of the country. Meanwhile, Beatrix and her neighbors begin to construct a coopera ve community that suggests the end could be, in fact, a bright beginning. Without modern means of communica on, will Beatrix and Carson reach each other, and what will be le of the old world if they do? The answers may lie with a fi een-year-old girl who could ul mately decide the fate of the cross-country lovers.
Kimi Eisele is a writer and mul disciplinary ar st. Her wri ng has appeared in Orion, High Country News, Terrain.org, and Fourth Genre, and has covered art, the environment, health, culture, youth, and the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. The recipient of numerous awards and residencies, she currently lives in Tucson and works for the Southwest Folklife Alliance, a nonprofit organiza on dedicated to preserving and celebra ng tradi onal knowledge and cultural expression.
www.hillnadell.com [email protected]