A new Hannibal Lector book will be out in time for the holidays.
In a last-minute addition to its holiday-season list, Delacorte Press, an imprint of the Bantam Dell Publishing Group, is expected to announce today that it will publish Hannibal Rising on Dec. 5. The 356-page novel chronicles the early life of Dr. Lecter.
Mr. Harris just handed in the manuscript for Hannibal Rising last month, and Bantam is rushing to publish the book in time for the crucial holiday sales season. It also hopes to capitalize on the February 2007 release of the movie version of the new novel, for which Mr. Harris also wrote the screenplay. The movie, which is produced by the Dino De Laurentis Company and marketed by the Weinstein Company, stars Gaspard Ulliel, the French co-star of the 2004 film A Very Long Engagement, as the young Dr. Lecter.
Irwyn Applebaum, publisher of Bantam, said the timing was fortuitous. "Usually even the best-selling books have an eight-week excitement cycle," he said. "But for this book, the movie excitement will hopefully be at its height just as the book goes through that cycle, so it's a very good opportunity for this book to have an extended hardcover life."
Close readers of Mr. Harris’s previous novels, which also include “The Silence of the Lambs” and “Red Dragon,” may recall that Dr. Lecter saw his entire family killed during World War II in Eastern Europe. The new novel, which covers the young Hannibal from age 6 through 20, will shed more light on the circumstances of those deaths, with a focus on Dr. Lecter’s memories of his younger sister, Mischa.
Nothing says "I love you" like the gift of a good cannibal/serial killer book, we always say.
