Dennis Lehane is the latest HarperCollins writer who will be producing an eponymous line of books for the publisher. The announcement today comes shortly after the news that Anthony Bourdain would be lending his name to a line of carefully selected food books for Ecco. Mr. Lehane, the author of Mystic River, “will help identify and acquire literary fiction with a dark urban edge,” according to a press release.
“I’m one of those people,” says Mr. Lehane in the statement, “who buys ten copies of a book I like and sends it to people I think would enjoy it. My goal is to call attention to worthy writers, who for some unknown reason aren’t as popular as they deserve to be. That’s a reason to get out of bed every morning. My background—where I grew up in Boston, the kinds of novels I like to read and write, my time spent as a writer on ‘The Wire’—will influence the kinds of books I acquire. But I just want to publish good work—an enthralling story gracefully told.”
