O My Darling Publishing Deal

I just finished a beautiful, poignant, and thoroughly engrossing novel by Chang-Rae Lee called, "Aloft." But don't take my word for it. In fact, while I wholeheartedly agree, those adulatory adjectives actually come from reviews in The Boston Globe, USA Today, and The Baltimore Sun (and, more specifically from the jacket of the book, which also lists excerpts from an additional 17 reviews). I liked the book so much, in fact, that I'm now planning to go out and buy Lee's first and second novels "Native Speaker" and "A Gesture Life"--well, right after I finish "O My Darling," a newly published novel written by my husband's cousin, Amity Gaige. I'm not just reading it out of familial (or extended familial) obligation--my husband already bought a copy of it--but because the first two chapters she read aloud at KGB in the East Village on Sunday were actually very good (not that I should be surprised: she is a graduate of Brown University and the Iowa Writer's Workshop). Still, she says the book took her six years to write, and was turned down by several publishers before Other Press accepted it.
I'm guessing the folks at Other Press will soon be as glad as she is that they took her on. She already has a second manuscript finished. And the reviews for her debut have been good so far.
Stories like this give hope to the rest of us who plan to seek a publishing deal in the not-so-distant future (my mom and myself included). My mom went to a writing conference a couple weekends ago and said the best thing she got out of it was Mary Higgins Clark's story of how her first manuscript got forty rejections. Even her first novel was turned down by two big book publishers, before another house agreed to sign her on with a $3,000 advance. That book, "Where are the Children?" is now in its 75th printing.