MUSIC MEN Lynyrd Skynyrd lives on, and we mean the original: Broadway Books has just bought Free Birds: The Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band, by Gene Odom, a lifelong friend of band leader Ronnie Van Zant who was himself injured in the 1977 plane crash that killed Van Zant and bandmates Steve and Cassie Gaines. ''Normally I think these books are better as a VH1 special, but Skynyrd has a rabid fan base even today,'' says Broadway executive editor Charlie Conrad.... In other music news: You mean there's still stuff we don't know about Madonna? Di-ographer Andrew Morton (Monica's Story) is writing an unauthorized bio of Mrs. Guy Ritchie. St. Martin's, which paid in the high six figures, will publish in November.
YOUNG AUTHORS DEPARTMENT Twenty-three-year-old Jonathan Safran Foer has sold his first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, a tragicomic tale of a young American writer looking into his family's past in the Ukraine, for what sources say is half a million dollars. ''If he was 53 you'd be impressed [with the book],'' says Houghton Mifflin's Eric Chinski, who won the 13-house auction. ''The fact that he's 23 makes it even more extraordinary.''
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY FOX Paula Fox, whose sophisticated novels, long out of print, have recently been rediscovered, has been selling so well Amazon has had to put two of her three reissued titles on back order. The novels — Desperate Characters, The Widow's Children, and Poor George — ''had a huge upsurge'' after a New York Times Magazine article (in which it was revealed, among other things, that Fox was Courtney Love's grandmother), says Amy Cherry, the Norton senior editor overseeing the reissues. Norton will bring out two more Fox novels in the fall, when her memoirs will also be published.
Add your comment
The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.