The 2022 novella The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt is both a psychological thriller AND a satirical critique of the publishing industry. It's also sold out everywhere.

JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:

There's a little novella by Helen DeWitt. It's called "The English Understand Wool." It's a psychological thriller that also works as a satirical critique of the publishing industry. The book came out in 2022, but it recently got so popular you pretty much can't find a copy anywhere. NPR's Andrew Limbong has more on this tiny book that's now a big hit.

ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Three Lives & Company is a bookstore in the West Village in New York, where Miriam Chotiner-Gardner is a bookseller and buyer and, importantly, a booster for Helen DeWitt's "The English Understand Wool."

MIRIAM CHOTINER-GARDNER: I think this book is pretty wholly original. The voice is singular. In 70 pages - 70 pages - Helen DeWitt, I think, accomplishes something that many writers don't accomplish at two or three times that length. It's such a cohesive voice. It's cutting. It's snobbish. It's clever. It's witty.

LIMBONG: It's also sold out.

Are you guys tapped out?

CHOTINER-GARDNER: Oh, we're tapped out. We're waiting for the next printing. We've got all these orders lined up.

LIMBONG: The book is published by New Directions, and their head, Barbara Epler, says the book has sold nearly 10,000 copies, which is huge for a small publisher like them. And she says there may be a couple reasons why this book is popping off right now. One is a scarcity of any new Helen DeWitt work.

BARBARA EPLER: You know, relative to her talent, she just doesn't publish enough.

EPLER: DeWitt's first novel, "The Last Samurai" - unrelated to the Tom Cruise movie - is an epic story about a mother and her prodigy son, and it was published in 2000. Since then, DeWitt's published a couple short story collections here and there, but that's it.

EPLER: Everyone is hungry for more Helen.

LIMBONG: But what really drove interest was this TikTok.

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ANN PATCHETT: Hi, everybody. It's Ann Patchett at Parnassus Books. And it's Friday.

LIMBONG: Ann Patchett, the author, bookstore owner and now book influencer, does a lot of work promoting lesser-known authors, and she posted this in October.

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PATCHETT: I went to one of my favorite stores, Three Lives in New York in the West Village, and I said, what's selling? What are you guys loving these days? And they showed me a book I had never seen before.

LIMBONG: I think you can guess which book. Here's Miriam Chotiner-Gardner from Three Lives again.

CHOTINER-GARDNER: She was here visiting and signing stock of "Tom Lake," and we recommended it to her. And she took it home - I think, read it on the plane.

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PATCHETT: I took a nap on the plane. I woke up. I started it over again. Oh, my God. This is the best thing ever.

CHOTINER-GARDNER: The last month, dozens and dozens of people have come in asking for the book because of Ann's TikTok.

LIMBONG: Here's publisher Barbara Epler.

EPLER: That was a very big bump. That was - I think we were cruising along at, like - I don't know - 6,000 copies. And so now we have back orders. So essentially, it's doubled.

HELEN DEWITT: Oh, it was lovely. It was so sweet of her. I mean, you know, she really did seem to like it. And, you know, it's just a lovely thing to do.

LIMBONG: That's author Helen DeWitt, who, by the way, when I reached her in Berlin, also didn't have a hard copy.

DEWITT: But I really did not know that it was so popular. I'm sort of out of the loop, I guess.

LIMBONG: DeWitt says her novella, which is about a rich, young girl navigating her way through the publishing world, was inspired by Daenerys Targaryen from the "Game Of Thrones" books.

DEWITT: Once she started to realize the machinations of the people she was dealing with, you know, she would start saying, I'm only a young girl, but - and then she would run rings around these cynical players who are trying to use her as a pawn. And I just - I loved that.

LIMBONG: The book is an interesting critique of the publishing industry, with hard questions over, what kind of story are you willing to sell? But that question only matters if there's a book available to buy. And Barbara Epler from New Directions tells me there are more copies of "The English Understand Wool" on the way. Andrew Limbong, NPR News.

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