Picador pre-empts Hal Ebbott’s ‘magnificent’ debut 

Anne Meadows, editorial director at Picador, has pre-empted UK and Commonwealth and audio rights for Among Friends by Hal Ebbott from Sophie Lambert at Conville & Walsh.

US rights sold in a pre-empt to: Sarah McGrath at Riverhead by Grainne Fox at UTA. Further foreign pre-empt and auction deals are as follows: Catalonia (Edicions del Periscopi), France (Actes Sud), Germany (Ullstein), Italy (Guanda), Netherlands (De Bezige Bij), Spain (Tusquets) by Kate Burton and team at C&W on behalf of UTA. 

The synopsis says: “Amos and Emerson have been unlikely friends for over 30 years. Raised in very different circumstances, they nevertheless share an unbreakable bond, or so they think. Now it’s Emerson’s 52nd birthday, and what begins as a celebratory weekend soon devolves into a reckoning when an act of unthinkable violence shatters the trust between them and their spouses, forcing each to confront the cost of their finely made world.” 

Meadows said: "Among Friends is a perfect novel: swift and magnificent, beautifully written and filled with questions that linger long in the mind. It tells a story about class, about marriage and adult friendship, and about the things we tell ourselves for the sake of comfort and ease. The Picador team raced through it on submission, and we knew our only option was to move fast.” 

Ebbott added: “Anne Meadows has long been on my radar as one of the UK’s most dynamic editors. The chance to work with her, Mary Mount, and the rest of the Picador team exceeds even my most indulgent daydreams.” 

Ebbott is a fellow at the Vermont Studio Center and President’s Scholar graduate of the New School’s MFA programme.