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Misery memoir push for Hodder

25.10.07

Hodder has bought the autobiography of high-profile anti-child abuse campaigner Shy Keenan for a "substantial" sum.

Rowena Webb and Helen Coyle acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in Keenan's Broken from David Riding at MBA. The February 2008 title—one of 10 misery memoirs Hodder has lined up for next year—tells how from infancy Keenan was sold by her stepfather to child molesters, and was drugged, beaten, gang raped, tortured and filmed. Authorities ignored her plight until she approached BBC "Newsnight", which exposed her stepfather and other paedophiles in a BAFTA award-winning documentary.

Keenan subsequently formed the Phoenix Chief Advocates with Sara Payne, whose daughter Sarah was murdered by a known paedophile in 2000. The group works on behalf of victims of sexual abuse and the families of children murdered by child molesters.

Also acquired for 2008 was Tess Stevens' How Could You Do It, Mum?, due in May. Coyle bought UK and Commonwealth rights for a "good amount" from Sheila Ableman. Stevens writes of her "extraordinarily bleak" childhood and exploitation by her brothel-owning mother, which sent her on a path of self-destruction and a lifetime in the sex industry.

"The misery memoir is not going away," Coyle said. "It is kind of amazing how the public continues to have an appetite for the genre, and we're just rolling with it."

Rights deal Hodder Shy Keenan

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