Faber acquires Czapnik debut The Falconer

Faber has acquired rights to Dana Czapnik’s debut novel. Editorial director Angus Cargill bought UK and Commonwealth rights, including audio, from Lisa Keim, rights director at Simon & Schuster in New York.  

Published in January in the US by Atria, The Falconer has been championed by writers including Ann Patchett, Salman Rushdie, Colum McCann and Claire Messud. 

Set in New York in 1993, “Lucy Adler, a street-smart, trash-talking baller, is often the only girl on the public courts. Lucy’s inner life is a contradiction. She’s by turns quixotic and cynical, insecure and self-possessed and, despite herself, is in unrequited love with her best friend and teammate Percy, scion of a prominent New York family who insists he wishes to resist his upper crust fate,” said the publisher. “As Lucy navigates this complex relationship in all its youthful heartache and prepares for life in the broader world, she begins to question accepted notions of success, bristling against her own hunger for male approval and searching for an authentic way to live and love. She is drawn into the world of a pair of provocative female artists living in what remains of New York’s bohemia, but soon even their paradise begins to show cracks.”

Czapnik said: “I’m incredibly excited The Falconer found a home in the UK with Faber. While the novel takes place in the early 1990's in New York City, I hope readers will find something universal in Lucy's story. I'm beyond thrilled to be working with Angus Cargill and the entire team at Faber, who are known throughout the world for their intelligence, dedication and talent. This is a dream come true.”

Faber will publish in e-book and audio in the next couple of months, ahead of a mass market paperback original for July 2019. Foreign rights deals have so far been made in Germany (Heyne) and Italy (Solferina).