Jonathan Cape lands Bratton’s ‘audacious’ reimagining of Shakespeare’s Henriad

Jonathan Cape has snapped up Henry Henry, the “accomplished, audacious and very funny” debut novel by Allen Bratton.

Željka Marošević, editorial director, acquired British Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Sarah McEachern on behalf of Martha Wydysh at the Trident Media Group. Publication is scheduled for spring 2024. 

Henry Henry is described as a queer reimagining of Shakespeare’s Henriad, transposing the legend of Henry V’s wayward youth into 21st-century Britain in the years leading up to the Brexit referendum.

Set in London in 2014, Hal Lancaster – 22, gay, Catholic – spends his first year out of Oxford floating between internships, drinking with his friends Jack and Poins, struggling through awkward hook-ups, and occasionally going to confession to be absolved of his many sins.

The synopsis adds: “When a grouse shooting accident – funny in retrospect – makes a romance out of Hal’s rivalry with fumblingly leftist and decidedly career-oriented family friend Harry Percy, Hal’s profligate ways begin to fade. He finds that he wants, for the first time, to be himself. But his father Henry is an Englishman: he will not let his son escape tradition. Before Hal can come into his own, he must confront not just buried grief and mounting shame, but also the secret that has held him back all along.”

An earlier version of Henry Henry was longlisted for the 2021 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award, and his short story, Philippa, which extends from a minor character in Henry Henry, won the 2021 Sewanee Review fiction contest. Henry Henry will be published in the US by the Unnamed Press, with Brandon Taylor editing.

Bratton said: “It’s an honour to be joining Jonathan Cape and Vintage, who have published so many of my favourite writers; I’m looking forward to working with Željka and the team at Cape to bring Henry Henry to the UK. I’m so grateful to Martha Wydysh, and to Sarah McEachern and the foreign rights team at Trident, for their unwavering belief in this book.”

Marošević said: “Henry Henry is an accomplished, audacious and very funny debut novel about privilege and power, growing up, choosing your own path and falling in love. Think ’Succession’ meets ’The Leopard’ meets The Line of Beauty [Picador]. Allen is a distinctive new talent and I’m so excited to be publishing him at Jonathan Cape and Vintage.”