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When the mere mention of your father's name is guaranteed to generate a stampede in a bookshop, the temptation to follow him into writing is understandable. Nicholas Cornwell, son of John le Carre, could congratulate himself for yielding to it yesterday as it emerged that he has signed a reported [pound]300,000 deal with Random House for a first novel which depicts life on earth restricted to a 40-mile band circling the globe after a nuclear disaster.
Cornwell - whose father's real name is David Cornwell - was determined to avoid comparisons with him and has adopted the pen name Nick Harkaway in a deliberate attempt to create an independent identity. But the connection ensured that the work, entitled The Wages Of Gonzo Lubitsch created a frisson of interest this week at Book Expo America the US publishing indus-try's biggest domestic convention - and six out of seven publishers alerted to the novel by Cornwell's agent, Patrick Walsh of Conville & Walsh, responded within 24 hours.
The Random House imprint William Heinemann eventually snapped up the book, which will be published next May in Britain and in the US, by Knopf.
The novel, described as being in the vein of Neal Stephenson or...