Your weekly deal memo: Ram Dass, Suzanne Collins, Sylvia Plath & more
88-year-old spiritual leader and author of Be Here Now Ram Dass has sold a memoir, with Rameshwar Das, which will detail the “psychological and psychedelic transformation from Harvard professor to the spiritual and cultural icon we know today.” Ram Dass is, of course, deeply fascinating, so I’m sure this book will be a trip.
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Kiki de Montparnasse isn’t just a lingerie line they also have bra sizes in order, and Mark Braude is here to prove it with Kiki Man Ray: Queen of the Underground, which will explore “the dazzling but largely forgotten life of Kiki de Montparnasse, cabaret performer, painter, actress, model, memoirist, and all around “it girl” of 1920s Paris, focusing on her eight-year professional and romantic entanglement with a then-unknown American photographer named Man Ray, with whom she would create several now iconic images.” Sounds like film rights won’t be far behind.
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As previously reported in this space, Suzanne Collins has sold a still-unnamed prequel to her bestselling Hunger Games series next year, set in “the world of Panem 64 years before the events of The Hunger Games, on the morning of the reaping of the 10th Hunger Games, exploring the state of nature, who we are, and what we perceive is required for our survival.” It goes on sale next year.
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In a major two-book deal, Shane Bauer, author of American Prison, has sold a new book based on his travels to, reporting on, and writing about Syria and the ongoing war, intended to “illuminate the role that the U.S. has played through the interconnected stories of a number of Americans involved in the conflict and Syrians whose lives have been impacted.”
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Sylvia Plath scholar Gail Crowther has sold a dual biography of Plath and Anne Sexton, which “weaves together the stories of these two women, placing them in their particular historical and cultural moment, and explores the maelstrom of their dramatic lives; the friendship, envy, respect, and ambition.” I can only wonder what they’ll be wearing on the cover . . .
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The debut deal of the week is Kate Russo‘s Super Host, which Publishers Marketplace describes as the “story of a once-successful Turner Prize-nominated artist who hasn’t sold a painting in years and resorts to listing his west London home on a popular vacation rental site, and the three different renters who unwittingly unlock the parts of his life that have been forgotten to him for too long.”
