Richard Ford Leaves Knopf After More Than 15 Years, Signs Three-Book Deal With Ecco

Richard Ford, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Frank Bascombe Trilogy, has left Knopf, his home of 17 years, and signed on to write three books for Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins. The acquiring editor at Ecco was the publisher, Dan Halpern; Binky Urban of ICM, Mr. Ford's longtime literary agent, brokered the deal.

Two of the books will be novels and the third will be a collection of short stories.

According to the announcement from Ecco, the first of the novels to come out, tentatively titled Canada, will be a story of "revenge and violent retribution set on the Saskatchewan prairie, in the early 1960s." The book will be out in 2010.