Harvard Law Hottie Lands Monster Book Deal

We follow the media and publishing worlds almost as closely as the legal world, so we’re not quite sure how we missed this. But we did, and we’re sorry. So we’re bringing it to you now, a few days late — and we apologize if you’ve already read about it somewhere else.
For all of you lawyers who are frustrated writers, this news may inspire or depress you, depending upon how you react to news of other people’s good fortune. Here’s a book deal announced last week in Publishers Marketplace:

Julie Buxbaum’s debut novel THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE, about a 29-year-old attorney who lost her mother as a teenager and finds her well-constructed life falling apart when she can’t commit to the man who loves her, to Susan Kamil at Dial Press, in a major deal, for publication in winter 2008, in a two-book deal, by Elaine Koster of the Elaine Koster Agency (US).

For those of you not conversant in PM-speak, “a major deal” is one with an advance of $500,000 and up.
The timing of the deal announcement was a bit ironic. That same week, Ms. Buxbaum wrote an essay for 02138, the new magazine by and about Harvard alumni, in which she waxes poetic about turning her back on Biglaw to pursue life as a sushi-starved artist. Here’s the money quote:

I am currently dressed in head to toe Old Navy. My highlights are grown passed [sic] my ears. That latte is a splurge, sushi an absolute no-no. And, of course, there is the constant, nagging guilt — like an angry rash — when I check my dwindling bank balance, when I remember I spent close to a quarter million dollars on higher education, when I realize that it was less than a year ago that I was making six figures. I was a litigator at a top law firm, an HLS graduate, a somebody. Now, well, to be honest, I am not too sure who I am, what exactly I “do.”

Not sure “what exactly you ‘do,'” Julie? Try this on for size: You collect a cool half-a-mil for being the latest hot young female writer with an Ivy League degree and a chick-lit manuscript.
Best of luck, Julie. May your tale end more happily than that of the last young Harvard gal who landed a $500,000 book deal.
Anyone have any intelligence to share about the comely Ms. Buxbaum — what she’s like, where she worked as a litigatrix, etc.? If so, please chime in.
Struggling Ivy Leaguer Makes Good [Gawker]
Meet Miss Hot Young Author Chick 2007 [GalleyCat]
Julie Buxbaum: The Opposite of Love [Publishers Marketplace (subscription)]

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