The debut novel, City on Fire, for Garth Risk Hallberg was in such demand that Knopf was willing to shell out close to $2 million as an advance, a virtual rarity these days - especially for a first novel.
The 900 page novel was at the center of a two day bidding war between several publishers before Knopf finally came out on top, The New York Times reports.
Not much is known of the plot for City on Fire other than it takes place in the 1970s in New York City and is being compared to Thomas Pynchon and Michael Chabon's works. Hallberg's agent Chris Parris-Lamb wrote in a letter to publishers that events "revolved around a central mystery: what exactly is going on behind the locked steel doors of a derelict townhouse in the East Village, and what might it have to do with the shooting in Central Park in the novel's opening act?"
The book was praised in an email to Parris-Lamb by Knopf editor Diana Miller as "off the charts in its ambition, its powers of observation, its ability to be at once intellectual and emotionally generous."
Parris-Lamb said that he was worried about the 900 page book. "There are a lot of very long novels with not a lot of structure to them." He added, "The intentionality and purposefulness with which the novel reached these lengths is really remarkable."
According to The Hollywood Reporter, before the book deal even closed, City on Fire was optioned. Producer Scott Rubin was enamored with the novel and immediately optioned it.
To option the novel, Rudin used his discretionary fund. Rudin has produced such films as Captain Phillips, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Social Network.
Hallberg has an illustrated novella A Field Guide to the North American Family and is a writing teacher at Sarah Lawrence College.