RIGHTS  LIST:  FALL 2010           

THE FRIEDRICH AGENCY

FICTION

CLEANING NABOKOV’S HOUSE

Leslie Daniels (Touchstone/April 2011)

Blending bittersweet humor and defiant originality, this stunning debut about a woman rediscovering herself after a divorce explores the heartbreaking and deeply funny aspects of the mess called love.

            Barb Barrett has inadequate skills for relationships. In particular, she cannot follow her husband’s instructions. Because of this character “flaw” she falls through the safety net of her lousy marriage, losing custody of her children and her home as she plummets.

            Guided only by her intense inner life, and a questionable business plan, Barb is determined to reinvent herself. She moves into a house once occupied by the literary genius, Vladimir Nabokov, author of the notorious Lolita. She discovers what could be Nabokov’s last unpublished manuscript and from there begins a painful yet joyous journey that is deliciously romantic, both darkly comic and wise. Introducing a dazzling new voice in fiction, Cleaning Nabokov’s House will enchant women’s fiction lovers with an accessible and engaging voice they will come to cherish. 

“The pleasures of the novel unfold in a series of tantalizing, laugh-out-loud twists. The portrayals are as heartrending as the writing is dead-on funny, and the storytelling is both quirky and captivating. I was swept along like a trout in a clear stream.  Bravo, Leslie Daniels.”

--Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

OC]