If You Happen to be Passing Through Sligo...

Brian McGilloway was kind enough to drop me a note telling me he found several copies of Shock and Awe sitting in the Just Published section of Keohane's Books in Sligo. I never expected to hear my book was on the shelves in Ireland--the Irish, of course, being the real owners of the English language--so I'm jazzed to an embarrassing degree.

I'm hoping the fact that Shock and Awe's epigraph is from WB Yeats (we had to pay his estate for four lines of verse, which made more sense back when the title was Smite the Waters, but it was money well-spent anyhow) will give me some street cred with the locals. Yo, Willy Butler--howzit hangin', dawg?

Speaking of Mr McGilloway, his debut novel Borderlands (which was selected by The Times as a Best Summer Read, and I sure can't argue with them) seems to have continued doing good business. A few months ago, it sold to the Japanese publisher Hayakawa, which is one of the top Asian publishers of American and European novels. Best of all, though, it has even broken through the walls of Fortress New York, becoming the first MNW title to be onsold to an American publisher. Thomas Dunne Books, a well-known imprint of St Martin's Press, has not only bought Borderlands for hardback publication next year, but has also bought the hardback rights to his follow-on Gallows Lane (which is planned for MNW publication in April 2008). There are plans for both to come out in US paperbacks as well.

I'd like to pretend my interest in this topic is entirely selfless, but the truth is I'm hoping Brian has blown a big enough hole in the North American defences that some of the rest of us can sneak through the breach behind him. Little Rock, Arkansas, here we come...