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‘Fargo’ Writer Scores Big With a Thriller - WSJ

http://www.wsj.com/articles/fargo-writer-hopes-to-break-out-as-novelist-1464272496

‘Fargo’ Writer Scores Big With a Thriller
[image: Noah Hawley]

Noah Hawley’s FX series “Fargo”
<http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2014/06/18/fargo-writer-noah-hawley-on-how-the-finale-came-together/>
has earned him an Emmy and a Golden Globe and cemented his place in
Hollywood as a creator and writer of critically acclaimed television. But
his lifelong ambition, thus far unrealized, has been to break out as a
novelist. With the release of his literary thriller “Before the Fall” on
May 31, he’ll get another chance.

Between 1998 and 2012, Mr. Hawley published four novels, none of which
could be called a hit. At a low point, in 2008, there was “The Punch,” a
family story that sold a mere 281 print copies in the U.S., according to
Nielsen BookScan.

*More: Read an excerpt from “Before the Fall.”
<http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Before_the_Fall_WSJexcerpt.pdf>
*

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“When an author starts to have a bad track record in terms of sales, it’s
very hard to then sell the next book,” said Susan Golomb, Mr. Hawley’s
literary agent. The author’s hopes were high for the 2012 release of “The
Good Father,” about a father whose son commits a grisly political crime.
“In the month leading up to it there was a really strong feeling that this
book was going to take off,” Mr. Hawley said. “Then sort of at the 11th
hour, it didn’t.” It sold about 25,000 print and e-book copies.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hawley was finding more success in Hollywood, having moved
to Los Angeles in 2004. After writing and selling three television pilots,
he took a writer-producer job on the series “Bones” in 2005 and his first
feature screenplay, “Lies & Alibis,” was released in 2006. “Fargo”
premiered in April 2014 and won the Emmy for Outstanding Miniseries that
summer.
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/fargo-and-other-tv-shows-that-reboot-each-season-1443721193>

Hot off the win, Ms. Golomb jumped at the chance to shop around 150 pages
of “Before the Fall,” a novel that Mr. Hawley had started and put aside
before “Fargo” was picked up. The novel begins with a plane crash in the
Atlantic, exploring the past lives of each person on board to solve the
mystery of why it went down.

Deb Futter, vice president and editor in chief of hardcovers at Grand
Central, read the partial draft and immediately decided to buy it—despite
Mr. Hawley’s track record for fiction sales.

Ms. Golomb sold the North American rights for a sum in the high six
figures. Sony <http://quotes.wsj.com/SNE> bought the film rights with Mr.
Hawley attached to produce and write the screenplay. Grand Central ordered
an initial print run of 88,000 copies and has since reprinted an additional
16,000 copies. Foreign rights have been sold in 24 territories and counting.

Mr. Hawley finished the bulk of the manuscript while filming and editing
the second season of “Fargo.” “It’s kind of a blur,” he said. Writing for
television helped him develop an efficient work ethic, doing his best in
the time allotted and then moving on. “Your job is to be an artist with a
gun to your head.”

*Write to *Lucy Feldman at Lucy.Feldman@wsj.com


Eric D. Schwerin
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com

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