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Knopf editor Jenny Jackson’s debut novel Pineapple Street has gone to Hutchinson Heinemann in an overnight pre-empt as well as selling in other major deals across the world.
Venetia Butterfield, Cornerstone m.d., acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Jenny Meyer of the Jenny Meyer Literary Agency on behalf of Brettne Bloom at The Book Group. The novel, which follows three women who are members of a wealthy family, is slated for early 2023.
Pam Dorman, vice-president and publisher of her eponymous imprint at Penguin Random House US, previously secured North American rights, through a "significant" pre-empt, from Bloom at The Book Group.
Jackson has spent almost 20 years working at Knopf Doubleday Group in New York, where she is vice-president and executive editor. She has edited authors suchas Emily St John Mandel and Erin Morgenstern. Pineapple Street is "set in late-capitalist New York", and follows three women in the WASP-y Stockton family: Darley, Sasha, and Georgiana. "Each has a different relationship to the family funds, with the oldest having been born into it, the middle sister having married into it, and the youngest eager to give all her money away,” the synopsis reads. The novel has been compared to the work of Curtis Sittenfeld, Emma Straub and Kiley Reid.
Butterfield told The Bookseller: “I am thrilled to be publishing Jenny’s fantastic debut Pineapple Street. It is smart and warm, utterly absorbing, and incredibly funny; a big hearted novel of family, love and the double-edged sword of privilege. I can’t wait to publish it on Hutchinson Heinemann.”
Jackson said: “Writing Pineapple Street was a total joy for me. I was working from home and missing my friends and colleagues and this book gave me the chance to gossip, to flirt, to go to fancy parties, and to meet an entire cast of outrageous people. I just had enormous fun gallivanting around this world and I hope readers will experience that same joy on the page. I am so very pleased to be working with Venetia Butterfield and her team in the UK.”
Meyer said: "I could not be more delighted to have Venetia publishing Jenny Jackson's brilliantly captivating, sharp-witted and immensely fun debut in the UK."
The book has also sold in various other international pre-empts: to btb in Germany, Rizzoli in Italy, Suma de Letras in Spain, Luitingh-Sijthoff-Sijthoff in Holland, and to Companhia das Letras in Brazil after “multiple dueling pre-empts", according to Meyer.