Doubleday scoops debut novel by White Review Short Story Prize-shortlisted Gass

Doubleday has scooped a debut novel by Ewan Gass, who was shortlisted for the 2020 White Review Short Story Prize.

Senior commissioning editor Bobby Mostyn-Owen acquired world all-language rights from Jessica Lee at AM Heath to Gass’ novel Clinical Intimacy, which will be published in summer 2024.

The synopsis says: "A researcher lays out her investigative parameters. Her subject? A mysterious and charismatic man, anonymised as ‘S’ Her interviewees? A succession of family, friends and professional contacts, who together struggle to account for the enigmatic figure who has wandered through their lives, doing some good things and some bad. Clinical Intimacy is a novel that looks at subjectivity through a collective.

"And it is a novel about fatherhood and sex work, a novel about how we narrativise the things we do to others, and a novel that poses a question that is both simple and complex: what does it mean to care for someone else?"

Gass said: "Clinical Intimacy seeks to probe enduring concerns – desire, care, paternity, power – with directness and sensitivity. That it was written in a time of prohibition of human contact is no accident: the novel seeks to reflect upon and escape from our current situation. My agent Jessica and editor Bobby have transformed my rough-around-the-edges draft into the finished whole of which I always dreamed: a work that stings and brings relief in equal measure."