'Beautiful' debut about control to Granta

Granta Books has acquired One of the Boys, a "beautiful and brutally clear-sighted" debut from Brooklyn-based author Daniel Magariel, in a four-way auction.

Editorial director Bella Lacey bought UK and Commonwealth rights to the title from Peter Straus at Rogers, Coleridge and White, on behalf of Bill Clegg at the Clegg Agency. Rights have also been sold to Nan Graham at Scribner in a pre-empt (US), Bromberg in a pre-empt (Sweden), and Fayard at auction (France).

One of the Boys is about the relationship between a controlling father and his two sons, set in the bright heat of suburban Albuquerque.

Lacey said: "This outstanding debut is propulsive storytelling at its best. Written with that almost masculine cleanness that so much American prose chases and never succeeds in realising, it grips from the first page. At its heart is a superbly nuanced portrait of a violent, menacing man, whose manipulations stem from a need to order the world around him, that it might service his idea of himself. Daniel Magariel is exceptionally talented, and I’m thrilled to welcome him onto the Granta list."

Granta Books will publish One of the Boys in spring 2017.