Olson, Neil 1964–

PERSONAL: Born 1964; married Caroline Sutton (an editor).

ADDRESSES: Office—Donadio & Olson Literary Agency, 121 W. 27th St., Ste. 704, New York, NY 10001-6207.

CAREER: Writer, literary agent, and playwright. Donadio & Olson Literary Agency, New York, NY, president and senior partner.

WRITINGS:

The Icon (novel), HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2005.

Author of play produced in workshop.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Another novel for tentative publication in 2007.

SIDELIGHTS: Novelist Neil Olson has seen the publishing industry from two distinct professional perspectives. As an author with a popular fiction debut to his credit, Olson enjoyed the satisfactions of the new novelist who sees his work achieve publication. In addition to being a published writer, however, Olson is a literary agent; representing clients such as Mario Puzo and Robert Stone, he is responsible for making the deals and ushering the work of others into print. Olson's time on both sides of the publishing desk has allowed him to gain a greater understanding of the role of agents as well as the tensions and satisfactions experienced by authors.

His debut novel, The Icon, is a thriller involving old family conflicts and the possibly criminal sale of a Greek religious icon. Olson took great care to ensure that publishers did not know the manuscript was coming from an established agent. It was purchased after being submitted anonymously at the suggestion of Olson's agent, Sloan Harris ("It's a brave agent who takes on an agent as a client," Olson remarked in an interview for Bookreporter.com). Only after the deal had been made did Olson reveal his identity as author.

"I think it's been very useful to all sides that I know publishing shorthand and why certain decisions are made, and that's probably made the process go more smoothly," he said in the Bookreporter.com interview. Still, experiencing the publishing process first hand, from an author's point of view, gave Olson a new perspective on the joys and trials that writers have experienced while he stewarded them through publication. "It's one thing to have seen it a million times and think you know what an author is going through and another to see your first book making its way through this process," he stated in a Publishers Weekly interview with Allen Appel. "I'd think, Oh my God, I'm doing all the things I told them not to do. I've been experiencing all those same fears that they have. I think, if anything, it will make me far more sympathetic, empathetic to my clients."

The Icon of the book's title is a painting of the Holy Mother of Katarini, a long-vanished religious work, said to have paranormal powers, that many thought destroyed after it disappeared from the village church in Katarini, Greece, near the end of World War II. The icon figured in a scheme by Greek partisans who wanted to trade it for weapons during the war; when the deal went bad the icon disappeared, bringing mass executions and the destruction of Katarini in the wake of its theft. More than fifty years later, the icon reappears as part of the estate of Herr Kessler, an art collector who had kept the painting hanging on the wall of his private chapel. When the icon comes into the possession of Kessler's beautiful granddaughter, Ana, diverse people vie to acquire it. Matthew Spear, an ambitious young curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, wants to add it to the Met's collection. An elderly Greek gangster wants the icon for his own. The Greek Orthodox Church seeks to reclaim the icon as Nazi plunder. When Ana accepts a lower-than-market-value bid from the church, the transfer agent turns out to be fake, and the icon once again vanishes. Spear and Ana face increasing violence as they try to find out the icon's significance, who took it, and why.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer called The Icon a "gripping, intelligent first novel of art thievery, treachery and revenge." Reviewer Joe Hartlaub, writing for Bookreporter.com, called it "'disturbing' in the sense that it gets the brain cells moving, shakes and bakes them a bit, and gets you looking at the world from a different perspective."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2005, review of The Icon, p. 194.

Library Journal, April 1, 2005, Laura A.B. Cifelli, review of The Icon, p. 87.

Publishers Weekly, January 12, 2004, John F. Baker, "Agent Takes up the Pen," p. 14; March 21, 2005, review of The Icon, p. 35; May 2, 2005, Allen Appel, "PW Talks with Neil Olson: Agent Litterateur," p. 174.

ONLINE

Bookreporter.com, http://www.bookreporter.com/ (May 13, 2005), Joe Hartlaub and Wiley Saichek, interview with Neil Olson; (July 9, 2005), Joe Hartlaub, review of The Icon.

New York Metro Online, http://www.newyorkmetro.com/ (July 9, 2005), Boris Kachka, interview with Neil Olson.