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William Collins wins eight-way fight for Rio Matchett's 'genre-defying' début
William Collins has triumphed in an eight-way auction for the "genre-defying" debut from Rio Matchett, a shortlistee for the 2024 Fitzcarraldo Editions essay prize. Publishing director Arabella Pike secured UK Commonwealth rights to Pyromaniac: A Personal and Cultural History of Fire.
The deal was negotiated by Claire Paterson Conrad at Janklow & Nesbit UK. North American rights were also acquired at auction by Allison Lorentzen at Viking Books; Chris Clemans at Janklow & Nesbit handled the sale on behalf of Paterson Conrad.
Matchett is the newly appointed joint c.e.o. and creative director of Camden People’s Theatre, and has taught at the University of Liverpool, Leeds Conservatoire and Birkbeck, University of London. The book blends history and memoir, and "explores humanity’s ongoing and ubiquitous obsession with fire seen through the prism of the author’s own experience". At 18, Matchett set fire to a church, for which she was sectioned then incarcerated for arson. The book follows what might have sparked such an act, as well as her "attempts to find hope and redemption among the embers".
Pike said: "This book is smoking hot. I loved Rio’s voice from the first sentence. She is an extraordinary writer with an even more remarkable story to tell."
Matchett said: "This book has been a lifetime in the making... it’s my hope that readers will find something they never expected, alongside something of themselves in its pages. Ultimately, I want the book to be an offer to those living in confusion and shame, not that life always makes sense, but at least that they’re not alone in the chaos."
She added: "Whether a reader has lived with compulsion specifically, with insanity more broadly, or has met mental illness primarily through people they love, Pyromaniac will apply tension to the dichotomy of philosophy and pathology, test the subjectivity of the criminal justice systems we exist within, and advocate for the vital importance of community as a method for coming to terms with the self."
