We knew immediately it was going to be a big book for us, and the advance certainly reflected that. I woke up to an email that had sent me at 3 in the morning, saying "this book is incredible, I wept real tears, you must buy it". Impressed by the quality of the book, Marcus forwarded it to Simon & Schuster editor-in-chief Marysue Rucci. Intending to self-publish, Rowley hired freelance editor Molly Pisani, who later pitched the novel to her former colleague, Karyn Marcus of Simon & Schuster. Rowley said of the manuscript, "I was proud of it as a piece of writing, but I never thought that this was going to change my life." Rowley wrote Lily and the Octopus in 100 days and submitted it to approximately 30 literary agents, who all declined to represent him. Rowley's boyfriend encouraged him to expand it into a novel. Rowley, a 43-year-old paralegal and screenwriter, had sold several unproduced screenplays before writing a short story about the death of his dachshund, Lily, to cope with his grief. Lily and the Octopus is the 2016 debut novel of Steven Rowley.Ī 42-year-old writer finds that a small octopus has attached itself to the head of his aging dachshund, Lily.
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