December 31, 2006
“Kate has the script” (”Thwaites has your letter”)
Clipped from “NB”, the column contributed to the TLS by “J.C.” (15 December 2006):
In the literary business, you’re always on the lookout for the next big break. It could come out of nowhere. The poet and former co-editor of Encounter, Anthony Thwaite, received an offer he could hardly refuse in a letter last week. It was written on headed notepaper, from Anderson Management, Inc of New York, and was signed by the CEO herself, Jennifer Anderson. She asked Mr Thwaite — in her excitement she addresses him as “Thwaites” — to help her complete a book, and to share in the resulting film bonanza.
The book is Black Eternal — “a supernatural fantasy about an English Prince/Nightclub Owner/Vampire who scans the centuries and revisits his eternal companion, only to discover that he is afraid of his own heart”. This is unfamiliar territory for Thwaite/Thwaites, a poet of mostly pastoral concerns, but Ms Anderson covets his maturity. She has written 223 pages, “but I feel that I need the perspective of a more experienced author to add a new voice”.
Anderson Management, Inc has a Manhattan address, at West 72nd Street, complete with email and telephone contacts. Thwaite hasn’t the faintest idea why its executive chose him to share her good fortune. Despite the interest of Random House, Penguin, Transworld and others in the book, and the desire of “Dallas Smith, Kate Winslet’s agent” to make a film of Black Eternal — “Kate has the script” — he is reluctant to commit himself. However, he has authorized us to let Anderson Management, Inc know that “Thwaites has your letter”.