Constable’s hunger for autumn fiction

Hunger’s Brides explores the true story of the 17th-century Mexican Juana Ines de la Cruz, described as the last great poet of the Spanish Golden Age, and it took its author 12 years to write. Published by Random House Canada, it has been a Canadian bestseller, and US, German and Serbian editions will be published this autumn simultaneously with the UK.
Commissioning editor Becky Hardie, in charge of Constable’s fiction list, explains the technical challenge faced in producing a novel of this size: "Anne Collins at RH Canada didn’t ask Paul to cut the book--in fact, she asked him to add 400 pages, covering the childhood of Juana Ines de la Cruz. It is structured in six parts and has lots of marginalia. They published it slightly larger than Royal size, and commissioned special paper, to keep the spine to two-and-a-half inches." Constable’s publicity plans for the novel include an autumn visit from the author, to include an event at the Edinburgh Festival.
Hunger’s Brides is the most eye-catching development on a list that Hardie says will grow slowly but surely, building on the success last year of novelist Richard Zimler and his mystical tales of Portuguese Jewry, Hunting Midnight and Guardian of the Dawn. "He has given us a solid launching pad into the trade," she says. Another Zimler novel, The Search for Sana (£7.99, p/b, 078X), will be published on 2nd June.
A new name from Constable for the spring is Christopher Nicholson, whose first novel The Fattest Man in America (26th May, £6.99, p/b, 1182) Hardie describes as "a quirky, dark, funny fable about life in modern America, with similarities to Michael Moore and Naomi Klein". The publisher has also bought Derek Robinson’s backlist of First and Second World War trilogies, previously published by Cassell to a military market, with the intention of breaking them out as general fiction. The first title to be reissued will be Goshawk Squadron (September, £6.99, p/b, 1727).