Another day, another ridiculous deal

Now, keep in mind I’m taking this with a grain of salt b/c book deals in the UK have a nasty habit of being overreported (Helen Oyeyemi, anyone? And the false figure still gets bandied about, too!) but if it’s true, then Michael Cox is one rich MoFo:

                A first-time author has landed a £500,000 book deal for a novel which has taken him 30 years to write.

Michael Cox has secured what is thought to be the largest ever advance for his debut novel The Meaning of Night.

The 55-year-old has been drafting the book since his mid-twenties.

Last year he discovered that a rare form of cancer, which he was

diagnosed with several years ago, was in danger of turning him blind.

After an operation to save his eyesight, he became determined to finish

the novel.

“This novel has been in my head – and in my dreams – for over 30 years,” Cox said.

“It’s amazing to me that my illness, which I have lived with for

so long, gave me the opportunity finally to get it down on paper.”

THE MEANING OF NIGHT will be published by John Murray and it’s a Victorian murder mystery set in 1854. No surprise on the time period as Cox was a Victorian specialist during his years editing short fiction collections at Oxford.