On his first night home from marine boot camp, my brother killed Rob Dawson’s German shepherd with a Phillips screwdriver.” Bring Me Your Saddest Arizona (University of Iowa Press, October 2003) by Ryan Harty. First book, short fiction. Agent: None. Editor: Holly Carver.
“At this point in the story, Packard had never fallen in love, and didn’t trust what he’d heard of the lingo (forever, my darling, with all my heart, till the end of time, more than life itself, with every fiber of my being, oh my darling Clementine, etc.).” Train (Doubleday, September 2003) by Pete Dexter. Sixth novel. Agent: Esther Newberg. Editor: Deb Futter.
“Noah holds his hands up to the fire.” Indiana, Indiana (Coffee House Press, September 2003) by Laird Hunt. Second novel. Agent: Patricia Moosbrugger. Editor: Christopher Fischbach.
“I denied my father three times, twice before he died, once afterwards.” The Book Against God (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2003) by James Wood. Second book, first novel. Agent: Andrew Wylie. Editor: Jonathan Galassi.
“It turns out / The dogs were in control all along.” X: poems (Copper Canyon Press, June 2003) by James Galvin. Eighth book, sixth poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Michael Wiegers.
“My great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Elizabeth Scott was born in 1766, grew up on the Virginia and Carolina frontiers, at age sixteen married an eighteen-year-old veteran of the Revolution and the Cherokee expeditions named Benjamin Hardin IV, moved with him into Tennessee and Kentucky and died on still another frontier, the Oil Trough Bottom on the south bank of the White River in what is now Arkansas but was then Missouri Territory.” Where I Was From (Knopf, September 2003) by Joan Didion. Twelfth book, seventh book of nonfiction/memoir. Agent: Lynn Nesbit. Editor: Shelley Wanger.
“Clare: It’s hard being left behind.” The Time Traveler’s Wife (MacAdam/Cage, September 2003) by Audrey Niffenegger. First book, novel. Agent: Joe Regal. Editor: Anika Streitfeld.
“Over the last 20 years, I have been hard at work.” By the Time You Finish This Book You Might Be Dead: Changing and Improving Your Life Through CUTLAS (Spuyten Duyvil, October 2003) by Aaron Zimmerman. First book, novel. Agent: None. Editor: Tod Thilleman.
“The French horn has us / where she wants us—up and about.” Eyeshot (Wesleyan University Press, October 2003) by Heather McHugh. Eighth book, seventh poetry collection. Agent: None. Editor: Suzanna Tamminen.
“In the not so merry month of May 1988, when her studies had evolved into a drag, Vidamía Farrell, finishing her sophomore year of high school, again became as restless as she had the previous four years.” No Matter How Much You Promise to Cook or Pay the Rent You Blew it Cauze Bill Bailey Ain’t Never Coming Home Again (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2003) by Edgardo Vega Yunqué. Third book, first novel. Agent: Thomas Colchie. Editor: Ayesha Pande.
“For a long time, I went to bed early.” Swann’s Way (Viking, September 2003) by Marcel Proust. First volume of second book, first novel. Translated from the French by Lydia Davis. Agent: None. Editor: Christopher Prendergast.
