Canongate scoops Miller’s 'provocative' short story collection 

Canongate has acquired Total, writer and filmmaker Rebecca Miller’s new short story collection.

C.e.o. and publisher Jamie Byng acquired UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Sarah Chalfant at The Wylie Agency. Canongate will publish as a trade paperback in September 2022 alongside Farrar, Straus & Giroux in North America.

The synopsis reads: "A middle-aged novelist devoid of inspiration alights on material in the form of an obsessive pet-shop worker from Cincinnati. A pregnant mother of two finds herself increasingly in thrall to her help, Nat. For Joad, the discovery of a haunting type-written document in an old desk in need of restoration is overwhelming. And when Roxanne rescues her sister from an institution, she comes to realise how vulnerable they both are. Each of the seven stories in Total is a full world, painted with vivid strokes. From the comforting mundanities of motherhood to a technologically infected near-future that mirrors our present with dark prescience, each life captured in this collection is unforgettable."

Miller is the author of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee (Canongate), which was a Richard & Judy Book Club pick, story collection Personal Velocity (Grove Press), which was adapted for film and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance film festival, and Jacob’s Folly (Canongate). Her work has been published in 32 languages. Her films include "Angela", "The Ballad of Jack and Rose" and "Maggie’s Plan". 

"This collection vibrates with much of what I have learned as a writer and a woman over many years," Miller said. "Though some of these stories came together in a matter of months, and were published, a few of them have resisted completion for decades. I didn’t know how to break them; they kept escaping the halter of narrative, skittering off like frightened horses. 

"It took being stuck in one place, staring out the window for months during the pandemic, for these renegades to walk up to me at last, ready to be tamed. The process has felt as though I were holding a hand out to my younger self, helping her across a chasm. I have always loved working with Jamie Byng and Canongate; I feel very lucky that they are once again publishing my work."

Byng added: "Rebecca Miller’s storytelling gifts are exceptional, both on the screen and on the page, and so it is enormously exciting to be publishing a new book with Rebecca. This provocative, nuanced, wide-ranging collection is certain to win her new readers and will remind her many existing fans why the short story can be such a satisfying and playful form for exploring ideas, character and language."