“THE DEATH INSTINCT promises to be the most brilliant companion piece to THE INTERPRETATION OF MURDER,” Harrington said in the announcement. “I’ve never read such a strong proposal: it has all the verve and drama of the first book, with the same electric sense of excitement about the murder mystery and about a completely different, darker side to Freud. Although the novel works absolutely as a stand-alone thriller, fans of the first book will be in for a huge treat: we encounter many of our favourite characters from Interpretation, but there are plenty of surprises, too.”

All the breathlessness is well and good, but what about the US rights? Turns out that Rubenfeld’s agent, Suzanne Gluck of William Morris, has moved her author from Henry Holt to Riverhead, where Geoff Kloske and Jake Morrissey bought North American rights. It’s not surprising, considering INTERPRETATION didn’t end up performing to the original advance and hype’s expectations , which would make the follow-up less of a sure bet for Holt (even if the paperback, published by Picador, seems to be doing a lot better.) Morrissey, who will have primary editing duties on the manuscript, hadn’t returned queries by email and telephone at the time of this writing, and no word yet – if ever – what sort of advance Riverhead paid out, though the easy conjecture would be on considerably less money than $800K…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Explaining how the thinly-vield roman a clef came to be, Vachon said “I felt like I was living with a bunch of people who had wrongly identified themselves as a post-9/11 generation. And I felt like I they were one of the most gilded and privileged groups to ever land into anything, that nobility no longer obliged but sort of entitled. I wanted to set down a portrait of this generation. Period,” he continued. “What’s the great Flaubertian quote? ‘All it takes for a member of the bourgeoisie to be happy is good health, selfishness, and stupidity, but the first two will get you nowhere if you don’t have the third?’” he said, slightly misquoting the author. “I love that.”

The question is how Vachon and his novel – Riverhead‘s “lead fiction title” for the moment according to his editor, Geoff Kloske – will be received. All the usual launch parties and off-the-book features apply, but the feature’s slightly sniffy tone about the book seems to indicate [his] skepticism that Vachon even has another novel in him. But Vachon makes it clear he’s got a tangible idea for book number two: “It’s a book about space tourism, Westchester County, instant unwanted fame and, um, the possibility of a new beginning, maybe? Of renewal? I mean, I feel the book I just wrote is so much about cities built on cities built on cities, and this one is not.”

Although if for whatever reason, Vachon decides not to write books anymore, he can always sing*:

*That’s Vachon singing “Perfect Gentleman” with Wyclef Jean at the Audi Forum in New York City on December 5, 2006.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

“Our world-class young readers publishing program is perfectly positioned to take Nick’s new book to the top of the young adult market,” said Doug Whitehead, president of Penguin Young Readers Group. “We are proud to now have Nick among our list of national bestselling adult authors who have written books for a Y.A. audience.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

GalleyCat‘s own Ron Hogan was one of the three judges (along with author Edwidge Danticat and Books & Books owner Mitchell Kaplan) and has dipped into each of these collections, along with many other potential candidates, as they’ve been published over the last several months. “I’m looking forward to devoting a lot more time to these three authors in the following weeks,” Hogan said, “and I’m glad I’ve got two other well-informed judges to help make what will undoubtedly be a tough decision.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.