Dennis Lehane Starts Own Imprint
After being offered the chance to start his own publishing imprint, author Dennis Lehane was definitely interested. However, he wanted to make sure he had full control over everything.
“I didn’t want anyone pressuring me to pick the ‘book of the moment,'” Lehane says. “This [arrangement] is informal, in the best sense of the word. It’s painless.”
The new HarperCollins imprint is called Dennis Lehane Books and will be debuting next month with The Cutting Season by Attica Locke – a screenwriter writing her first novel.
Lehane said the book interested him due to the depth of language, character structure and story. He says that’s what he’ll be looking for in the imprint.
“Books that I probably won’t choose? Oh, there’s probably not gonna be any sci-fi, chick lit, romance, or post-modern meta-fiction. That’s just stuff I don’t particularly read, to be honest.”
Lehane has his own novel coming out next month, entitled Live by Night.
“It’s my gangster book. Since I was a little kid, it was my dream to write a gangster book, and this is it.”
The novel has already been optioned by Leonardo DiCaprio, who has already starred in the movie adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel Shutter Island.