You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Canongate has acquired a "momentous" début novel in what it calls a significant deal after the book won the inaugural To Hell With Prize during the London Book Fair.
Senior editor Francis Bickmore bought world rights, excluding North America, in Bed by David Whitehouse via Cathryn Summerhayes at William Morris Endeavor in a pre-emptive deal finalised late last week. WME sold US and Canadian rights to Paul Whitlatch at Scribner.
Bed centres around a family as it becomes dominated by the eccentric eldest child, Mal, who undergoes an "extravagant metamorphosis" and who Bickmore described as "part-prophet, part-tyrant". The story is told through the eyes of the younger brother.
Bickmore said: "It was the combination of the warm and unforgettable voice with topical, sometimes shocking, issues—depression, obesity, celebrity, mortality, love—that made me fall for this. I think people who loved Vernon God Little, The Wrong Boy or The Rotter's Club will relish David Whitehouse.
"There were some great entries for the To Hell With Prize but Bed was something else and the unanimous winner. The characters are wildly eccentric but Whitehouse's storytelling is so warm none of us could put it down."
Bickmore was a judge on this year's To Hell With Prize, alongside author David Peace, writer India Knight, playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah and Waterstone.com editor Greg Eden.
Laurence Johns of To Hell With Publishing, organisers of the prize, said: "The aim of the prize was always to secure a deal for a manuscript that we felt deserved to be published so we're thrilled with the news and hoping this will set a precedent for what next year's prize can achieve."