Atlantic pre-empts two 'brilliant' novels by Denton

Atlantic Books has acquired All Along the Echo, a novel exploring "the glorious noise of existence" by Danny Denton, in a two book pre-empt. 

Publishing director James Roxburgh obtained UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada,  from Tracy Bohan at the Wylie Agency. The first of the novels,  All Along the Echo, will be published in hardback, trade paperback and e-book in April 2022.

"Tony Cooney, a middle-aged radio talk-show host, takes a road trip across Ireland with his producer, Louise (Lou) Fitzpatrick, as part of a publicity stunt organised by a local car dealership," the synopsis reads. "Their aim is to give away to one lucky winner the Mazda 2 that they’re driving, the catch being that it must go to one of the many emigrants who have recently returned home to escape a wave of escalating terror attacks in London. 

"But as they navigate dual-carriageways and Holiday Inns, giving airtime and narrative to the great cacophony of voices calling into the show, the car competition transforms into a surreal quest – Tony to find his first love, Lou to find answers to impossible questions, all of us to discover whether our lives ever add up to more than the stories we tell ourselves and each other."

"All Along the Echo is about the tremendous static of life, and how from that static we assemble for ourselves our own intimate sense of meaning, of place, of reality," said Roxburgh. "So much of contemporary literature is about the narrow signals – a dynamic here, a relationship there – whereas Danny Denton’s brilliant, bravura capturing of modern Ireland is about the glorious noise of existence, in all its huge and fabulous totality. I think he’s one of the smartest and most fearless writers of his generation and giving such an author as Danny a long-term home on our list feels to me a particularly eloquent example of the ambition of Atlantic Fiction."

Denton is a novelist and lecturer in creative writing at University College Cork. His first novel, The Earlie King & The Kid In Yellow (Granta Books), was nominated for Newcomer of the Year at the Irish Book Awards and also shortlisted for the Collyer-Bristow Prize. Among other publications, Denton’s work has appeared in the Stinging Fly, Southword, Granta, Winter Papers, the Dublin Review, the Guardian, Irish Times and the Big Issue.

"I couldn't be more thrilled to have found a home for my work at Atlantic," he said. "Not only have they spent the past 20 years publishing work of the highest, most interesting quality – books I've utterly lost and found myself in – but they are also one of the bravest publishers I know of. So, it’s the greatest thing to be working with James and his brilliant team. And, in an industry where publishers increasingly commit to ‘books’ as opposed to ‘authors’, I'm so very grateful for the opportunity to work with them long term."