West Yorkshire-based novelist Ben Myers is the first writer to get a publishing deal with Jack White’s record label, Third Man.
The Detroit label, which usually puts out garage rock records has branched out into literature and is publishing a North American edition of Myers’ historical novel, The Gallows Pole in 2019 on its imprint, Third Man Books.
Speaking about the surprise signing, Myers said: "It’s a long way from Mytholmroyd, West Yorkshire to Nashville, Tennessee, but I’ve long been a fan of Third Man Records and their exciting new literary wing, Third Man Books, too. Jack White and his pals have been using their success in the best possible way: by pumping resources back into underground culture. When they got in touch out of the blue to ask ‘What have you got?’ I jumped at the chance to work with them. The Gallows Pole has been an underground, word-of-mouth independent success in the UK – it won the Walter Scott Prize for historic fiction and is on its fifth print run – and in Third Man Books (Winter 2019) it feels like it has found the perfect home in the US.”
It’s been a stunning year for Myers and his work about the coin clippers of the Cragg Vale. As well as The Gallows Pole winning the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction in June (previous winners include Sebastian Barry, Hilary Mantel and Andrea Levy) it has now been optioned for adaptation by Element Pictures.
Myers, as is his wont, has been extremely busy at the word processor and his next novel, The Offing, will be published in the UK by Bloomsbury in 2020; the publishers have also bought his short story collection Male Tears which is "broadly about flawed, toxic, weak men, and strong women".
