Jonathan Cape snaps up Edward St Aubyn's 'exhilarating and wondrous' new novel

Jonathan Cape has snapped up the rights to Edward St Aubyn’s "exhilarating and wondrous" new novel, Parallel Lines. UK and Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, were acquired by Kate Harvey from Peter Straus at RCW Literary Agency and publishing director Hannah Westland will publish the novel at Jonathan Cape. North American rights were aquired up by Knopf.

The novel follows "wildly different people whose fates are improbably, yet inextricably, linked". The synopsis reads: "It is summer, and Sebastian is in treatment following a breakdown. He is desperate to connect with the mother who abandoned him as a child. His therapist, Martin, has his own challenges, including his adopted daughter Olivia’s tenuous relationship with her biological mother. Olivia, meanwhile, is producing a radio series on natural disasters, which itself seems to be running parallel to the events of her personal life, as her husband, Francis, pursues his mission of rewilding the world. Over the course of the year, their fates collide in outrageous and poignant ways, and soon each of their destinies is revealed in a marvellous new light."

Westland said: "No one can capture the wildly complex roving miracle of what goes on inside our heads the way Edward St Aubyn can. This deeply humane, dazzlingly ambitious novel takes us into the lives of a group of characters whose circumstances differ radically, but who come together in their shared instinct to find connection and meaning in our shifting, fragile world."