Literary agent Bill Clegg has been the talk of the town since last week, when Radaronline.com reported that Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, his boss at the William Morris Agency, had gone out with a proposal for a memoir he intends to write about his descent into and recovery from crack addiction.

Today, Pat Strachan of Little, Brown acquired the rights to Mr. Clegg's book, which is tentatively called Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man. Ms. Walsh confirmed that Ms. Strachan had made the acquisition but declined to comment further. Mr. Clegg did not respond to an e-mail. 

Mr. Clegg was the subject of much concern and speculation within the publishing industry in 2005, when he abrupty stopped coming into work at the agency he ran at the time with Sarah Burnes, and left his clients—Nicole Krauss, Susan Choi, and Andrew Sean Greer among them—without representation.  read more »

Tom Wolfe, who has published all thirteen of his books since 1965 with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, is taking his business to Little, Brown for his upcoming novel, Back to Blood.

Why did Mr. Wolfe leave his home? According to FSG editor-in-chief Jonathan Galassi, it was a question only of money.

"We just couldn't agree on the price for the project. That was the only thing," Mr. Galassi said. "We love Tom. He's a big part of the family here. It's sad, but there are certain things that are just determining."

Mr. Galassi said he read about 20 pages of Mr. Wolfe's book when Lynn Nesbit--Mr. Wolfe's longtime literary agent--submitted it to him in early December. Ms. Nesbit, who could not be reached for comment, took the book elsewhere when it became clear that an agreement with FSG would not be reached.

Mr. Wolfe's editor at Little, Brown will be Pat Strachan, who worked with him on Bonfire of the Vanities and five other books while she was an editor at FSG during the 1970s and '80s.  read more »