An Agent's Inbox #18

Dear Ms. Shea:

I am a published non-fiction author seeking representation for my novel, Sparrow Migrations, a braided narrative of five ordinary people transformed by an extraordinary event--the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson” plane crash--and by each other.

This unpublished novel was a semi-finalist (top 1 percent) in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. In a review of contestant manuscripts, a Publishers Weekly reviewer said: “The plot lines are sophisticated, the characters intricately drawn, and the book has a remarkably strong voice.”

I’m querying you after discovering An Agent’s Inbox contest. I’ve spent the last year strengthening the manuscript, and am ready to try my luck again. I hope you’ll consider me as a client.

But first, consider the sparrow.

Robby Palmer certainly does. And the pigeons. And especially, the geese. Aboard a sightseeing ferry with his parents, Robby, a 12-year-old with autism, witnesses the “Miracle on the Hudson” plane crash and becomes obsessed with the birds blamed. His obsession provides a precarious perch from which he ventures, for the first time, beyond the bunker of his brain to form real-world relationships.

Consider the future.

Deborah DeWitt-Goldman ponders it constantly. Half of a power couple at Cornell, she and husband Christopher are trying to escape their infertility struggles when Flight 1549 plunges into the icy river. As they await rescue, Deborah most fears being denied motherhood. In fact, like the plane, all her life expectations are poised to splinter.

Consider the truth.

Brett Stevens is cowering before it. A preacher’s wife who’s hidden a secret for years, she’s aboard the ferry, too. Caught by a TV camera as her incredulous daughter Amanda watches at home in Pennsylvania, Brett must weigh the consequences of being true to herself against the risk of losing Amanda.

Straddling commercial and literary fiction, Sparrow Migrations is 78,000 words. Publishers Weekly called it “a book brimming with humanity and grace.”

A professional journalist for 20 years, I’ve published nonfiction (Road Biking Michigan: Globe-Pequot Press, 2005) and essays (Chicken Soup for the Wine Lovers Soul, 2007) and am the mother of a child with autism. You can find out more at carinoga.com.

This is a simultaneous submission. You will find the first 250 words requested below. I’d be happy to send more pages. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
C.N.


SPARROW MIGRATIONS

January 15, 2009

Robby stood on the deck at the very point of the ferry’s bow, chin resting on the rail, absorbing the steady low vibration of the engine. It was quiet out here, soothingly so. His parents were in the cabin, saying the 20-degree weather was too cold for them. Even though it was cold, Robby preferred the nearly empty deck to the warm cabin filled with jostling, oblivious people, talking loudly on their phones, talking to each other, talking, talking, talking. His parents had deliberately chosen midafternoon for this sightseeing excursion around the island of Manhattan, before the skyscrapers disgorged their thousands of commuters onto the outbound ferries. For a kid like Robby, unfamiliar places and surroundings threatened an inherently vulnerable comfort zone. It was better to go now.

His headphones helped, too. The giant kind that looked like earmuffs. Most kids he knew wore earbuds and wouldn’t be caught dead in a pair like his. But Robby didn’t care what others thought. When he picked them out at Radio Shack, his mom hesitated. “What about these?” she said, showing him a package of the little tiny white kind he saw around the necks of all the other kids at Charles A. Lindbergh Middle School.

They wore them around their necks because it was against the rules to listen to headphones during the school day. Robby differed that way, too, because he wasn’t actually listening to anything. He cut off the wires after opening the package.