C&W acquires ‘explosive’ feminist memoir

Chatto & Windus has acquired an “explosive” non-fiction book, dubbed part cultural history, part feminist manifesto and part memoir, from The Wylie Agency.

Clara Farmer, publishing director at Chatto & Windus, has acquired, on proposal, world all-language rights to Art Monsters: On Beauty and Excess by Lauren Elkin, from Alba Ziegler- Bailey at The Wylie Agency. 

“Art Monsters is an explosive reflection on the lives of creative women and the necessity of transgression. In the old days an ‘art monster’ was a man attended to by an ‘angel in the house’ so that he could concentrate solely on artistic concerns. But what happens when the angel is also an art monster herself – how do these women occupy both roles, fearlessly?” said the publisher. “Lauren Elkin’s riveting new book looks at women in culture – in art, literature, music and fashion – and how so often they are found wanting, either for failing to live up to impossible expectations, or for exceeding them so radically that they become ‘too much’. But this monstrousness can create its own power. From riot grrrl to Pussy Riot, from Louise Bourgeois to Audre Lorde, Art Monsters is a celebration of women making art that aims to provoke, that delights in all that is crass, grotesque, too big and too loud.”

Full manuscript to be delivered early 2020. US rights have been sold to FSG; German and Korean deals have also been secured.