A very cool publishing note: Frequent National Review contributor Mary Eberstadt is publishing a comic novel, The Washington Zoo.
Publishers Marketplace just reported the news first. Adam Bellow (once literary editor here) will be the editor at Bombardier Books, and Jonathan Bronitsky at Athos made the sale.
The book is described as:
a humorous novel drawing on three decades of life inside the nation’s capital to portray the entertaining, status-conscious, and human ecosystem of Washington, offering a portrait of the city behind the headlines that blends social satire with insights into marriage, family, ambition, and contemporary American life.
I have it on good authority — which should not be a surprise to anyone who knows the author — that this is not a thinly veiled tell-all. I suspect fascinating stories about the human condition — with wit and wisdom.
Mary and her family are dear friends — and we may be collaborating on a thing or two (and have over the years) — but her work and reputation are well-regarded and don’t need my boosting.
I believe that the last thing the late Cardinal George Pell ever wrote was the foreword to her 2023 book with Ignatius Press, Adam and Eve after the Pill, Revisited. He praised her intellectual prowess and faithfulness to truth and beauty in a speech in New York that I happened to be at and in personal conversation that night, not too long before his sudden death.
I’m just excited for Mary’s Washington Zoo project. We need more creativity — people thinking outside the box, so to speak: Write a novel, start a maternity home . . . be not afraid!
Needless to say, I am eager to see the final product.
And I would be remiss not to mention that Mary Eberstadt’s fiction career had a moment here, where what would ultimately become a book and a play, The Loser Letters, was born as a Friday online serial around 2008 — almost two decades ago.
Wonderful news — something to look forward to!
I understand we’re probably looking at a spring 2027 release.