*Alright, so I’ve given you this teaser about the book, and I had to give the page a provisional title. But Hannibal and me is not actually the title of the book. It turns out that several other authors are already using the and me conceit or some variation of it, so my publishers, Riverhead, pointed out that we’re in cliché territory, which is of course to be avoided.

Nor is my original idea, The Hannibal Curse, the title. It’s been explained to me that American publishers are very wary about any book title that could sound remotely negative, and Curse apparently fell into that category. So no Curses. Hannibal’s Impostor, Eternal Hannibal,… Who knows? Riverhead and I will agree the final title when I deliver the book, in a bit less than a year. As I joked to my agent, Dan Mandel, that feels a bit like agreeing to let the midwife christen your child at birth, but hey, it’s the way the business works. They’re apparently good at picking titles at Riverhead–think A Thousand Splendid Suns and such.