Thomas Harris delivers Hannibal manuscript
Bestselling author Thomas Harris delivers his 600-page manuscript for his new novel Hannibal to Delacorte Press.He had promised the book more than 10 years earlier as part of a two-book contract that paid him a 5.2 million advance.The book was the third novel featuring serial killer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter who first appeared in Harris 1981 book Red Dragon as a minor character.
He played a larger role in The Silence of the Lambs (1988) which sold some 10 million copies and was made into an Academy Award-winning movie in 1991.Hannibal appeared in bookstores less than three months after Harris delivered the manuscript and quickly topped the bestseller charts despite-or perhaps because of-an intensely gruesome plot.It too was made into a film directed by Ridley Scott which was released in 2001.Harris was born in 1940 in Richmond Mississippi the son of a biology teacher and an electrical engineer.In 1968 he took a job with the Associated Press in New York.
While working for the news agency Harris and two friends had an idea for a novel about hijackers seizing the Goodyear blimp during the Super Bowl.Harris turned the idea into the bestselling Black Sunday (1975).Like his antihero Hannibal Lecter Harris is a gourmet chef with a taste for fine wines.He divides his time among Sag Harbour Miami and Paris.
