Successful Queries: Gráinne Fox and “Odessa,” by Gabrielle Sher

Welcome back to the Successful Queries series. In this installment, find a query letter from agent Gráinne Fox for Gabrielle Sher's debut novel, Odessa.

Gabrielle Sher attended Hamilton College, where she earned the Rosenfeld Chapbook Prize for her novella Bowerbird.  She received her MFA and PhD in Creative Writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland.  Her first novel, Odessa, originated as part of her doctoral dissertation titled “Who Made Us Monsters? Narrative Psychology and The Female Jewish Gothic.”  She currently lives and writes in New Jersey with her husband Jamie and their dog Bo. 

We are thrilled to send you a gothic literary debut, ODESSA,  by Gabrielle Sher,  a genre- bending novel for readers of gorgeously written historical fiction such as THE HISTORIAN and with a nod to the canon in FRANKENSTEIN, (of course) but also for the Susanna Clarke/ Sophie Macintosh reader.  An uncanny novel of female strength and identity, and a piercing representation of a centuries old conflict in the former Russian Empire, ODESSA follows a Jewish family who are inadvertently swept into an old, dark ritual, as violent pogroms threaten to destroy their family and displace them from their homeland.  

Odessa, 1905. Villagers are mysteriously disappearing, and whispers of Gentile attacks have the Kovnat family living in constant fear. Yetta Kovnat is a young woman who wants nothing more than to be free – to escape her terrified mother, Frieda, and the tiny bedroom she shares with her younger brother Ephraim. Mordechai, the family’s stubborn patriarch, spends his days preparing for the inevitable violence—building weapons, studying the ancient texts and dark magic, and vowing that when the time comes, he will be the one to save his family from the attacks.  

When violence finally visits their home and Yetta is murdered, a dangerous plan is hatched. Mordechai insists on using his new found knowledge of The Kabbalah to save her.  And this time, the rituals must work. Yetta is reborn as a golem – yet nothing is the same. She is not the obedient daughter she once was, and she knows that there’s a secret her father isn’t telling her. She doesn’t understand her newfound strength and agility.  She feels there’s something missing from her very soul. Meanwhile there’s something monstrous stalking the villagers and their enemies, lurking in the woods beyond the shtetl, something that may just be of Mordechai’s own making. 

Told through the perspective of Yetta, her mother Frieda, and father Mordechai, and using the literary traditions of Jewish folklore and gothic horror, this novel is truly sui generis and the most exciting debut we’ve worked on in years. It evokes a sense of haunting, fear and maternal love so fierce, so moving and visceral.  There’s also a TON of off the page publicity given the Author’s note (see attached).

We believe that Gabby is a rare talent.   You’re among the first to read ODESSA and we are excited to hear what you think. We are offering as usual, North American rights only. 

Warmest,

Gráinne & Kelly

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The match of author with an agent is often *kismet.  My colleague had met with Gabby initially as her husband worked with Gabby’s father, and she thought that the supernatural description of ODESSA was definitely more my wheelhouse and she was right…and how lucky was I to then read both Gabby’s first novel (which now that I’m reminded of it, I honestly loved it...) and then her PhD about this gothic doppelgänger story in which a young woman is brought back to life by her father who makes one fatal mistake. It’s such an irresistible pitch, I couldn’t help but ask Gabby if she wanted to work on this first.  

This can happen to an agent when you encounter an author’s work for the first time and while that particular piece might not quite be what you can sell or have a vision for at the time. This has happened to me another two times in recent years; I’ve read a novel and spoken to the author, liked them (crucial!) and then subsequently signed them for completely different work. The talent is obvious, but the publishing environment might not be right i.e.: a reluctance to acquire short stories etc. etc. insert whatever biased opinion Publishing has at the given moment! Literary memoir is “hard,” no wait, it’s hot again. Historical is BACK!

Gabby’s ideas were immediately distinct and highly imaginative; I’d never read anything like her either in subject matter or voice. The joy of being an agent is in finding this confluence of (through whatever circuitous means and referrals!) this kind of voice and talent coupled with a dynamite idea. Like all manuscripts, there was editorial work to be done but Gabby had from the outset a fantastic sense of propulsion, her endings of each chapter often landed with a zinger like at the end of part 1: “to claw its way out, and walk away on its own two monstrous feet” that just delighted me so much. Her prose was also very beautiful and tonally just my cup of tea; supernatural, gothic, historical. 

Plenty of life has happened since we first met while she was at St. Andrews University, Scotland and started work on ODESSA. Gabby got married and moved back to the US. Kelly got married and promoted. Fletcher and Co. was bought by UTA. And I remain (as young as ever I was) as excited by the originality and flair I read for the first time in Gabby Sher’s manuscript... *I work with Sophie Mackintosh for the US market only, Harriet Moore is her primary agent.

One of the most shocking pieces of advice I received from my late mentor, John Burnside, was to be willing to “put a novel in the drawer.” He was my supervisor for my MFA program (and later my PhD) at the University of St Andrews, and at the time I was in the midst of writing my first ever novel. I couldn’t comprehend the idea that someone could spend years working on a project just to shelve it. It seemed like taking the “kill your darlings” lesson to an unreasonable extreme, and I didn’t believe him. (Spoiler, he was right).

The novel was about ghosts, and was loosely based on the haunted house I grew up in. I worked relentlessly on it. I thought it was my greatest work, the novel that would someday make my dreams come true and get me published. Turns out it was just a new writer’s first attempt at a novel–and who is actually good at something the first time they try it?

When I began working with John on my PhD, a gothic novel that would become Odessa, I began the search for an agent for my finished ghost book. It wasn’t anonymous emails that finally got a bite, but basically (surprise) it was networking. An agent offered to read the ghost book, met with me to chat about it, and gave some suggestions. It was yet another–very kind–unspoken no. We were on our way out of the coffee shop when she asked me if I was working on anything else, and I gave a quick pitch for Odessa. She stopped in her tracks just as we got to the door and basically shouted, “Why didn’t you start with that??”

She said she worked with another agent, Gráinne Fox, who would love Odessa. (Weirdest thing–I had a book with me to read on the train ride into the city. It was called The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh, who just so happens to be another of Gráinne’s authors. I had no idea.) Gráinne read the ghost novel, and what I had written so far of Odessa. She said with utter certainty that Odessa was my debut. 

I ended up signing with Gráinne and her assistant Kelly (who is now an agent in her own right) before I even had a completed first draft. Gráinne and Kelly waited (very patiently) for me to finish my PhD, then we edited (and edited, and edited) together for a few more years before it was ready to pitch to publishers. My agents helped me transform what was basically a doctoral dissertation into a sellable novel. That was new for me, but I think I learned more about being an author from the editing process than actually writing that first draft.

The journey was nowhere near as easy as I had so confidently thought. (This confidence may have come from John’s not so realistic advice, which was to tell me the story of how he found his agent: He sent one email to one person saying that he wrote a good book and that was it.) The whole process took over a decade. I faced so much rejection I thought it was probably an impossible dream, but I kept going anyway. I am proud of myself for being relentless. I learned to manage my expectations. I learned to put a novel in the drawer. It wasn’t wasted effort because it got me here. 

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Gráinne Fox is a literary agent with UTA and represents award-winning novelists, New York Times bestselling journalists and academics. Her clients have been shortlisted for, or won, various awards including The William Hill Sports Book of The Year, The Booker Prize, The Women’s Prize, The Irish Book Awards, The British Book Awards, The Orwell Prize, The Plutarch Award, the RTÉ Short Story Competition, and the NBCC.