Salt pre-empts 'sweeping generational tale' by Brooks

Salt had pre-empted The Catchers, a "sweeping generational tale" by Xan Brooks.

Chris Hamilton-Emery acquired world rights, including translations, for the new work from the author directly, and will publish the book as a paperback original on 15th October 2024.

The Catchers is described as a "full-blooded American odyssey" spanning everywhere from the Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta. The synopsis says: "It’s the story of John Coughlin, the song-catcher, and his search for the backwoods bluesman, Moss Evans, whose playing is said to make the stormclouds part and the bullfrogs explode. Provocative and rousing, bound for glory, Brooks’s second novel combines the fine-grained texture of 1920s America with the sweep and spectacle of an Arthurian quest."

Brooks commented: "Writing every book is a journey, but writing this one felt like an especially hazardous and hubristic trip up-river. I’m relieved to have brought The Catchers home to Salt Publishing, and am excited by the prospect of sharing it with the world."

Hamilton-Emery added: "Xan Brooks launched onto the British fiction scene in 2017 with an astonishing debut that garnered widespread critical attention and prize nominations. Now, after five years in the writing, he returns with a sweeping generational tale that is sure to attract comparisons with contenders for the Great American Novel. This novel will be our super-lead for the autumn-winter list of 2024."

Brooks is a writer, editor and broadcaster, and one of the founding editorial team at the Big Issue magazine in London. He spent 15 years as a writer and associate editor at the Guardian and his debut novel, The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times (Salt), was listed for the Costa First Novel Award, the Author’s Club Award, the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction.