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Serpent’s Tail lands Willis’ debut novel Girlfriend on Mars
Serpent’s Tail has acquired Girlfriend on Mars, a “heartbreakingly poignant yet riotously funny” debut novel by Canadian writer Deborah Willis.
Commissioning editor Leonora Craig Cohen acquired UK and Commonwealth rights excluding Canada from Tracy Bohan at The Wylie Agency. The book will be published in the US by W W Norton and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada in June. Serpent’s Tail will publish as a lead title in the UK in July supported by a major campaign.
Translation rights have been sold to Bollati Boringhieri Editore in Italy, Editions Payot & Rivages in France and Gads Forlag in Denmark.
The novel follows the story of Kevin, who is happily committed to his girlfriend, Amber, and their life together growing weed in an overpriced basement apartment.
But one day Amber announces that she has been selected for a reality show where she will compete for one of two seats on the first human-led mission to Mars. If selected, she must stay on Mars for good, because the technology to come home does not exist.
Much as Kevin hopes Amber will be voted off the show, all this uncertainty is prompting some deeply uncomfortable revelations, the synopsis goes on.
Craig Cohen described the novel as a “brilliant portrait of a loving but dysfunctional relationship coming undone against a backdrop of global crisis and inequality”. It reads, she said, like a cross between Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (Chatto & Windus) and Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last (Virago).
“The whole company fell in love with Amber and Kevin and now we have proofs ready,” Cohen said.
Willis said: “I’m honoured to work with Leonora Craig Cohen and to be published by Serpent’s Tail. They’ve published many writers I admire, including fellow Canadians, and I feel fortunate that my novel found a home with this adventurous, literary press.”
