Fourth Estate falls for Jones' 'thrilling' debut Sleep

Journalist Honor Jones’ “thrilling” debut of childhood events which continue to haunt in later life has been pre-empted by Fourth Estate, with the novel selling in four other markets. 

Publishing director Kishani Widyaratna acquired UK and Commonwealth English language rights, excluding Canada, to Sleep from Anna Webber of United Agents on behalf of Bill Clegg at the Clegg Agency. North American rights were acquired by Sarah McGrath at Riverhead Books at auction, while the book has sold to Ullstein in Germany, Libros del Asteroide in Spain and Rizzoli in Italy, all in pre-empts. Auctions under way in further territories.

The novel, set for a 2025 release, follows Margaret, who passes drowsy afternoons in the well-groomed greenery of New Jersey suburbia, where she delights in Saturday pancakes and porch sleepovers. But a series of "life-altering trespasses" break the idyll. Years later, Margaret is recently divorced and negotiating co-parenting, work and a fledgling relationship, and yet the events of her childhood privately haunt her adult life.

Jones is a senior editor at the Atlantic and formerly worked as a senior staff editor at the New York Times’ opinion desk. 

Widyaratna said: “I fell head over heels for Sleep from the first moment I encountered Honor Jones’ sublime writing. There is so much all the team here loved about Sleep: whether the genius simplicity of the title; the chilling atmosphere overlaying a seemly benign suburban idyl; the invigorating exploration of sex, family and gender; or the sheer devastating emotion of reading a novel so exquisitely observed, painful and yet humane.” 

Jones added: “I wanted to write a book about the things that happen to us that we don’t understand, things that happen in the moments between childhood and adulthood, between sleeping and waking, between action and consequence."