Barnes sells her third novel

Even though she hasn’t even finished it, Kim Barnes has apparently sold her next novel – her third – to the New York publisher Alfred A. Knopf .

Barnes is still working on “American Mecca,” which is set in the 1960s in the gated compound of an oil company named Aramco and follows the story of an American couple.

According to a University of Idaho press release, “The story explores the failures and successes of the Aramco utopia, offering insights into American values as well as those expressed through the distinctively different Wahhabi and Bedu cultures that coexist in Saudi Arabia .”

Barnes, a creative writing professor at UI and wife of noted poet Robert Wrigley , is the author of the novels “Finding Caruso” (2003) and “A Country Called Home” (2008). Her first literary efforts includes two memoirs, “In the Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country” (1996) and “Hungry for the World” (2000).

“American Mecca,” Barnes says, is “an intense narrative of a place defined by both magnificent progress and utter chaos. It is part love story, part adventure story, part tragedy and intrigue. It is the story of the stunning brilliance of the House of Saud to create a triangle of power between the Kingdom, the Wahhabi and the Bedu. It is a story of the ‘Aramco family,’ its visions and its failures, set in a time when the American dream became the dream of the world.”