← Book Riot - The Podcast
Book Riot - The Podcast
Which Writers Could Most Benefit from a Signal Adaptation?
00:58:12
Jeff and Rebecca talk about authors they thing would most benefit from (or they would just personally like to see have) a signal adaptation.
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- [00:01]
Jeff O'Neill
Daredevil is born again on Disney plus.
- [00:04]
Rebecca Schinsky
Why did you stop being a vigilante?
- [00:07]
Jeff O'Neill
The line was crossed.
- [00:08]
Rebecca Schinsky
Sometimes peace needs to be broken.
- [00:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Chaos must reign. On March 4th, the nine episode event begins. I was raised to believe in grace, but I was also raised to believe in retribution. Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again.
- [00:26]
Rebecca Schinsky
Don't miss the two episode premiere March.
- [00:28]
Jeff O'Neill
4Th only on Disney Plus.
- [00:31]
Roisin O'Donnell
Since you're new to HR Block, we'll look at your returns from the last three years for any money your last guy might have missed for free.
- [00:37]
Jeff O'Neill
I could get money back from last year.
- [00:39]
Roisin O'Donnell
You could. We'll find any mistakes.
- [00:41]
Rebecca Schinsky
Could have really used that two years.
- [00:42]
Jeff O'Neill
Ago when I dated that mistake for five months. Don't leave money on the table. Switch to H and R Block and get a free Second look review. Second look is included at no additional cost with the purchase of tax preparation. Results vary. All tax situations are different. Fees apply if you have us file an amended return. This is the Book Riot podcast. I'm Jeff O'Neill.
- [01:02]
Roisin O'Donnell
I'm Rebecca Schinsky.
- [01:04]
Jeff O'Neill
And today we're kind of in the February doldrums a little bit. We're ginning stuff up. I mean not gin and stuff up, but like there's not a huge amount of book releases. It's not mid year, middle of February. It's the worst time. I don't know what to say. It just is. So this is what we're doing today?
- [01:18]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, it's cold. The industry is a little slow this winter. Like the first really big release of the season isn't until what, March 11th for Karen Russell. So we are, we're talking about movies and our desire for adapt books that we wish would be adapted. This kind of also feeds into Oscar season coming up. We've talked about best adapted screenplay shots for next week's episode. So yeah, a little crossover. But we know everybody likes to talk about the books they wish would be movies or TV shows.
- [01:50]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, and it's a weird time for adaptations too. So what we're going to do is authors we think could especially benefit from having an adaptation, a signal adaptation we say in this work. And a couple of, I don't know, caveats, explainers, working assumptions. One is that what author wouldn't benefit from a signal adaptation? So I mean take as read like anyone would like this. Like, okay, yes, we get that. And then what that means, it's also no guarantee that you're going to have a different vector to your career necessarily. Right. Like sometimes it makes a difference, sometimes it doesn't. There are so many adaptations that to a first approximation may not matter too much for some, some kind of people. Like some people it really does. Like, I think, for example, Andy Weir, the adaptation of the Martian made a huge difference in his career. There's going to be another one too for other kinds of people. I'm not sure. Well, you know, Tom Robbins has been on my mind, so I'm gonna use Tom Ross as a weird example. Really popular in the 70s and 80s, gets a bad adaptation in 1993 and it did, you know, no one cares. No one who didn't care about Tom Robbins before counting out after at least coming off of that movie. So it's no guarantee, but it is a spin of the roulette wheel and sometimes you can come up aces. So we're going to walk through the authors we think would, I don't know, I guess for me there's some authors on here that are pretty famous on this podcast and in the book world. But you walk down the street or maybe even go walk around Powell's and like ask people and they're like, I don't. Who's. I'm not sure. Or yeah, maybe I've heard of it. But like, I'm thinking about what, what authors have a chance, a signal adaptation would really make them so that maybe a lot more people know their name that care about this kind of stuff.
- [03:33]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yes. Yeah, I think that's exactly what we're looking for here is the authors that have some level of like book nerd cred but that we would like to see be broken out into maybe if not even quite like dinner table recognizable names in the household just to be more mainstream that you don't have to be among the Joan Diddy and tote bag carrying crowd to, you know, know or celebrate this author. And a good adaptation can do that. It can, you know, both be a real, a source of real excitement for the fans of a property, but also bring a whole bunch of new readers.
- [04:07]
Jeff O'Neill
In and it can work where it doesn't even need to know their name. Like I think with the Leanne Moriarty there's a lot of people that don't know but from the author of Big Little Lies that matters. So like can you attach to the title at that regard. So we're going to run through them, talk about why they may or may not fit and then we go. So I let's take our first sponsor break and then we'll get into it.
- [04:29]
Roisin O'Donnell
This episode is sponsored by nesting by Royshin O'Donnell stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from the audiobook. In this beautiful, urgent and ultimately uplifting novel by a rising Irish literary star comes a heart pounding, life affirming story about one woman trying to leave her marriage and start over. On a bright spring afternoon, Kiara Fay makes a split second decision that will change everything. Grabbing an armful of clothes off the clothesline, she straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away, head spinning. All she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe and that this time when she leaves, she must stay away. Nesting was an instant bestseller in Ireland and the UK and now it is finally available for US listeners. The audiobook is read by Louisa Harland and it's perfect for fans of Claire Keegan and Louise Kennedy. This is an extraordinary debut that creates a devastating and suspenseful portrait of gaslighting and emotional abuse and brilliantly depicts why women find it so hard to leave. Thanks to our sponsors at Hachette Audio. Again, stick around after the show to hear an excerpt from nesting by Roisin O'Donnell.
- [05:42]
Kate Alice Marshall
Today's episode is brought to you by Flatiron Books, publisher of A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall. When Theodora met Connor, wealthy, charming and a member of the powerful Daltons, she fell in love instantly. Six months later, he's brought her to Idlewild, his family's isolated winter retreat. Thea tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can't ignore the footprints outside her cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has. Then, in a disused cabin, Thea finds something impossible a photo of herself as a child taken at Idyllwild. Someone here has a shocking secret that they will do anything to keep hidden, and discovering what happened at Idlewild may cost Theo everything. So this is obviously a great mystery slash thriller. It has wealthy family with secrets, tropes secluded cabin during winter, trope memory loss that's starting to return Trope and Kate Alice Marshall has previously written thrillers like what Lies in the woods and no One Can Know. Make sure to check out A Killing Cold by Kate Alice Marshall and thanks again to Flatiron Books for sponsoring this episode. Today's episode is brought to you by bookshop.org's new ebook store. Support Local independent bookstores even when you read digitally. So Bookshop.org's new ebook store lets you instantly access thousands of digital titles while supporting independent bookstores with every purchase. Their seamless platform brings together the convenience of digital reading with the mission of indie book selling. Whether you're commuting traveling, or simply prefer reading on your own device. You can now build your digital library while directly supporting local bookstores. Shop on bookshop.org and discover a reading future that's both digital and fiercely independent. Thanks again to bookshop.org for sponsoring this episode.
- [07:38]
Jeff O'Neill
I've got two question marks for you, I guess to start here because I feel like, and I'm not joking about one of these names because I could easily troll you with it, but like Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver, both on my list. Okay. So in the world of books, they're already pretty well known. Like the bestsellers Demon Copper had sold like gangbusters. AD Smith is an icon as a stylist and as a personality and has been really since White teeth came out 25 years ago. There's a 25th anniversary edition of White Teeth out, but. But, yeah, but that's kind of it.
- [08:17]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. I think with Zadie Smith, her reputation is very literary and highbrow and for good reasons. You know, she can write like nobody's business. But I think that often is a barrier to entry for folks because Zadie Smith seems highbrow and literary and the stories are all very readable and engaging and fun and like, I was the biggest skeptic about what the fraud was going to be like and then was, you know, converted very quickly. And I will never doubt Zadie Smith ever again. But something like White Teeth or On Beauty being adapted, I think would make Zadie Smith not just a more recognizable name for more people, but I think it would bring even book people who have been hesitant to be Zadie Smith readers into the universe of like, oh, right. These are engaging, accessible human stories. They're just told very, very skillfully. Kingsolver, I just think is like, in that perfect sweet spot. She's incredibly commercially appealing and there are several of her books, like Prodigal Summer would be a hell of a limited run TV show. It could be steamy and fun. The Poisonwood Bible would, would work the same way. You could see Apple doing all sorts of beautiful, you know, on location shooting for that. And Demon Copperhead has so much appeal and is so timely, but also just a really great title that people are intrigued by.
- [09:41]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I think Kingsolver, I would love to see a great Zadie Smith adaptation. The caveat. Not a caveat, but one of the games here is like, what if it's awesome? Like, assume it's awesome for a minute. And if Kingsolver gets an awesome adaptation, I feel like it's a bigger tent than I don't know, is on Beauty's 80s most approachable book, I think. I mean, White Teeth is pretty strange. The Fraud. I mean, Autograph man is pretty strange. Like, I think even a really good adaptation of a Zadie Smith novel doesn't have as broad of appeal as a. As a Poisonwood Bible adaptation might.
- [10:17]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, that's a great point. And. And Smith tends to like, bounce around in what she's doing from book to book. And so if you, like On Beauty, you might enjoy the adaptation of that and go pick it up. But that doesn't guarantee or really increase your chances of liking the Fraud or liking what she's doing in White Teeth, where I feel like even though Kingsolver changes settings and primary themes for each book, it's more in the Ann Patchett zone. You know what you're gonna get if you've liked one Barbara Kingsolver novel, you're probably gonna like the rest of them.
- [10:48]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I guess that reminds me of something else I circled on the list. But the news this morning that the Sarah J. Maas adaptation got canned at Hulu means that there isn't one forthcoming there and certainly to me, a signal that we're in a different era of adaptations and the amount of money that's gonna be spent on this stuff. I guess, like, there is, there are levels to this, right? There are the Stephen Kings of the Worlds and the Rowlings of the Worlds and the George R.R. martins of the world that like their adaptations, especially in genre. It seems like in genre it's much easier to do than in commercial or literary fiction. But she is as famous amongst the people that like, romantasy as you can possibly be. But we've talked about this, but. But no more. And we had talked about a signal adaptation a la, I don't know, Game of Thrones or anything like that would make her on the level. Could make. Could. Would give her everything you would need to be on to have a chance to be on that level. And I don't know if it's not gonna. If they're gonna kill it, what's gonna happen now? They've given up the options. Could take another four years of development. Did they see the. Do they see the Yarrows adaptation in the wings? Like, we don't want to compete with that. Like, we've talked about this ad nauseam, not ad nauseam multiple times before. But like, that's really surprising. I mean, that's tough. That's a tough break.
- [12:09]
Roisin O'Donnell
I think it also raises questions about the, like, will we Actually see the Yaros adaptation come to the light of day. Will they come? That's a big, expensive project to undertake. Will it actually come to fruition? Is there a real question there? And, you know, I mean, it's hard to reach for an analog because there just aren't very many of them. But, like, it ends with us. Granted, was not like a great movie. It was a good enough movie and the Colleen Hoover fans seemed to like it. But I don't think it increased Colleen Hoover's, you know, Q rating any. I'm not sure it brought new rating, new readers into the Hoover hive. The Hoover verse.
- [12:48]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't know when the movie tie in edition was charting. And people probably think, I love this book and they brought their friends to go with them. So it's hard. It's hard to know. But that was already such a phenomenon. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think it's really interesting to think about the Yarrow situation. As long as we've been alive and paying attention. When you've got a phenomenon the size of Yaros, which is at this point, the peaks are higher than Court of Thorn. Acotar. Sorry for all the heads out there. I know the lingo to a phenomenon. They get a big adaptation, whether it's the Da Vinci Code, fifty Shades, Twilight, Potterverse, where the crawdads sing, it ends with us, like, to a franchise, they get one. So in my lifetime of paying attention to things that sell, if there is no mass, if there is no Yarrows, it would really be the first time that Holly was like, you know what? We're good. Good. We're good. And I think it's the expense. I think it is not.
- [13:52]
Roisin O'Donnell
Oh, yes.
- [13:53]
Jeff O'Neill
In the competitive landscape, though, Game of Thrones is not cheap to do.
- [13:57]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. But like, would Game of Thrones get greenlit today? For how long?
- [14:02]
Jeff O'Neill
There's more money sloshed. There was no Netflix or Apple and.
- [14:05]
Roisin O'Donnell
Stuff competing for then. We're so right. And now we're on, like, the other side. Streaming peaked and fell since Game of Thrones first premiered that I really wonder about that, like, if Acotar stays dead if nobody picks it up. And depending on what happens with the Euros adaptation, like, we may be getting some new signals about where we really are in streaming and adaptation and how much money studios are willing to put into these properties that have huge fan bases. But, like, I think where the Crawdads thing is an interesting sort of counterfactual to it because that's not a huge production. It doesn't require a lot of special effects. Like it was a relatively low budget movie. It didn't do super well. But I think it did like money, its budget. Yeah, yeah, it was.
- [14:52]
Jeff O'Neill
Twilight is fantasy, but it's not. I mean Onyx Storm and these are giant. It's like yes, whole half hours of dragons doing stuff. And I've been watching House of Dragon on hbo. They are very careful about how much dragon there is because like every second of Dragon has to be so unbelievably time consuming and expensive. And I don't know. Again, I don't know what Iron Flame and Onyx Storm do, but by the time we read, we read 4th Wing, by the time you get to the end, it's pretty dragon heavy. And I can only imagine it gets more so from there. Dozens of dragons in the wind on. On the wing and fighting and moving around. Like I wonder if someone on the production line item, the production designer was like, oh my God. God, I cannot. The amount of. So it's super. I guess it's high risk. It's higher risk because it's so high risk.
- [15:44]
Roisin O'Donnell
And if it's bad, like, oh, if it's bad, that's just. If that's so much money just lit on fire. Like you mentioned Twilight and the adaptation of the first Twilight book, like that first Twilight movie is kind of famously pretty bad in terms of production value. Like Edward steps out into the sunlight and his skin is supposed to be glittering and he just looks kind of sweaty. But that was lucky to land in the zone of like kind of so bad it's good. And people have a lot of affection for that series and can. And it got better over time. The production value of those got better over time. But what you need for vampires is so much less at least that flavor of vampire than what you need for a giant dragon situation. Like this is a real moment for literary fiction to shine in adaptations because you just need people in rooms.
- [16:33]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, I think, I think the literary genres and I have a lot of names I was looking at that there's a mystery or something unusual going on, I guess. One last note on Game of Thrones, I think your point about the lower production value of the Twilight series that got a bigger budget as there was proof that there was money to be made there. Game of Thrones is very similar. The early seasons and the first season, I believe, both experientially and reading about it. The budget wasn't what it would become later. And thankfully, I don't know if George planned this, but it's pretty dragon light until the end. Right. You know, Daenerys is walking around and may or may not have clothes on any given moment, but she just has dragon eggs for like the. And only like the last shot of season one, are there dragons flying around for like five seconds. And that gave him chance like, okay, we've got to hit hbo. Up the budget, up the budget, up the budget. But even by the end, I mean, those, the Longest Night and Hardhome and some of those, like, classic Game of Thrones battle episodes were fantastically expensive, but it was already a guaranteed crossover hit at that point, those seasons. So it's just a different like to.
- [17:40]
Roisin O'Donnell
Add one more dragon to the pile. Or maybe there are dragons in the Sanderson universe, I don't know. But I hate. In doing a little research this morning, I came across a Polygon article where they had interviewed Brandon Sanderson and asked him, like, why is there not a signal adaptation of your work? And he says it's because studios and streamers aren't ready to do it. Well, and some of that, a large part of it is the budget. Some of it is the quality of the effects. Like, we have pretty good effects available in Hollywood. They are just so expensive. And this is not a time where studios and, you know, networks are really willing to splash out on something that they're not sure they can make a big hit.
- [18:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. And the, the Lord of the Rings of Power has been okay. Is it? They continue to make it House of Dragons been okay. None of it's reached the heights of the predecessors. And then Wheel of Time has been okay. So there's fantasy properties out there, which you wonder if they're learning the right lesson from the modestness of. I mean, enough to keep funding seasons. But those are giant IP already. I mean, Wheel of Time, I guess people didn't know that as much, but that was launched when money was flowing out like it was getting shot out of Dragon Mouse like fire at that point. Okay, we've done our fantasy. So I got Zadie and Kingsolver. Where do you want to go on your list next? That is interesting to talk about.
- [18:56]
Roisin O'Donnell
Let's see, I've got Brit Bennett, which.
- [18:59]
Jeff O'Neill
I have Brit Bennett too, because.
- [19:01]
Roisin O'Donnell
Right. There's only a couple novels, but it feels like Brit Bennett, like lives rent free in my head for those two novels, the Mothers and then the Vanishing half. It's been a while since we heard from her. I would love to hear news of a new book deal, but both. Oh, maybe we have, you know, who can keep track anymore. But both are so engaging and I think would be relatively affordable to produce. But especially the Vanishing Half you could do in a, you know, like shoot it on some locations. You don't have a huge cast and there's so much to talk about. It was a huge book club hit as well. I really loved the Mothers, but I think the collective narration of that book is a challenge. It can be done, you know, like Sofia Coppola adapted the Virgin Suicides, which has that plural narrative voice. So I'd be interested. But I really would love to see the Vanishing Half on screen. I think it would make a great, like eight episode apple situation.
- [20:00]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. I mean, I think this was my number one draft pick, actually. The Vanishing Half, specifically with Brett Bennett. I did a little bit of research and there were rights for a limited series, I think. Anything we have heard of, I know we have at least a couple literary scouts that listen. They're like, yeah, that's been optioned. Yeah, that's an option. Because generally speaking, for these companies, the rights to option, if I remember this right, it's just the right to do something with it for a while. You're not actually committing to it, especially paying for a reservation at a restaurant more than anything.
- [20:32]
Roisin O'Donnell
You've just got it so no one else can get it.
- [20:35]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me figure this out. While I don't want to give it up to him, but I think the Vanishing Half ticks all of the spots. And it already has a song. I mean, it won the Goodreads Choice Award for historical fiction in, you know, five years ago when it came out. And Brit Bennett worked on an American girl doll in 2020. 2023. So I'm sure she's working on other stuff. Maybe she got a development deal to do a TV show like she Got Flournoyed. That's what I'm gonna say. That what you call maybe she got Angela Flournoyed into doing something, which is great and good for them. Grab that bag.
- [21:05]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, get your bag.
- [21:06]
Jeff O'Neill
But we're a book show, so please come back to us at some point.
- [21:10]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. There was a cover reveal for the new Angela Flournoy novel this week coming out this fall. And I'm. Come on down. Angela Flournoy. Come back to this.
- [21:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. The Mothers got adapted with, you know, Kerry Washington's a producer. It makes a ton of sense. The thing about Vanishing Half is you've got twins. And that can go a couple ways.
- [21:28]
Roisin O'Donnell
That's true. It can go a couple of ways.
- [21:31]
Jeff O'Neill
Maybe make it more difficult for how that works. But yeah, I think. I think Brit Bennett's a really fantastic choice.
- [21:36]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah.
- [21:37]
Jeff O'Neill
Since I had that one too. Back to you. Back to you.
- [21:40]
Roisin O'Donnell
Oh, okay. Okay. The next one, I really want to see SA Cosby, but especially Blacktop Wastelands.
- [21:46]
Jeff O'Neill
SA Cosby as well.
- [21:48]
Roisin O'Donnell
Right. Like, come on, we're getting the gang back together for one last job. He's a getaway driver. There's so much action. That book had me on the edge of my seat. It would be so much fun to watch. And like, this should be a movie. I have strong feelings that this is not a streaming series. Give me this in like 130 minutes. Let's make it snappy.
- [22:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. So, I mean, multiple things have been optioned with him. I looked this up to both Blacktop Wasteland and Razor Blade Tears. I think the one that we're actually gonna see because it's the Obama's production company options. His new one, Kingdom of Ashes or King of Ashes.
- [22:25]
Roisin O'Donnell
It comes out King of Ashes.
- [22:27]
Jeff O'Neill
It comes out in May or June. Do you have it in front of you?
- [22:29]
Roisin O'Donnell
I don't have it in front of me.
- [22:30]
Jeff O'Neill
It's. It's the middle of the. It's the middle of the year this year, so. And that got a big advance too. I think we've been waiting, like, I really. Since I think after Blake. Blacktop Wasteland, like, that's one. Because that was his first big one with a big five. But especially after Razor Blade Tears, like, ah, okay, we've got. We have a ball game here. So that could be pretty, Pretty cool. Yeah. I. I think this, this one feels to me just a matter of time that he's going to get a big adaptation.
- [22:56]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah.
- [22:56]
Jeff O'Neill
Whether or not it does the deed, that's culture. Anybody's guess.
- [23:01]
Roisin O'Donnell
You know, we haven't read Blacktop or not Blacktop. We haven't read King of Ashes coming out later in the spring. But Blacktop Wasteland is the first big one. And it's also the least political of his novels. So most likely to be a four quadrant hit at the box office because you're not turning anybody off with, you know, like there is a crime. Like it's a gay couple that are murdered in one of the books and the parents are coming together. And that flavor might be little too woke for our current political moment. So I'd like to see all of his books be adapted. I think Blacktop Wasteland has the highest win potential so far.
- [23:37]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Great character too, in terms of bug. And that's one too, for a debut, I guess. It wasn't his debut, but his first, the big five. He got a Dennis Lehane blurb. I'm on blurb watch. I'm buying low on blurbs, you know, so I'm really paying attention to blurbs right now because I didn't.
- [23:51]
Roisin O'Donnell
I don't know. Does Dennis Lehane. Is he a prolific blurber? I'm not sure.
- [23:55]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't know. Maybe. But like, if you like hard boiled crime fiction, you're like, okay, Lahane, that's someone who knows what they're talking about. Good zone from there. Okay. Some of these. Almost everything I looked at had a option gonna come out maybe. And I don't know. But I do think that the Murderbot series is coming from Apple tv. Apple tv, once they get into a game, tend not to abandon that thing. Like, because they literally don't care. Like, I don't even know where the P and L shows up for. For their streaming stuff when they're talking about trillion dollars.
- [24:29]
Roisin O'Donnell
I know either, Jeff.
- [24:30]
Jeff O'Neill
I know, right? It's. Yeah, it's like my frosted mini Wheats budget. Like I'm just buy it. I don't really keep track. It's just part of what I do at this point every morning. But I think in terms of. I was really looking for a sci fi genre thing because Silo has done pretty well. We get more video game adaptations. We used to like. I mean, Last of Us has kind of become. It's just. I mean, it is sci fi near future. I'm not really sure what you want to do with it. I guess it's. It's spec fic, but it's pretty light on the sci fi. But the Murderbot series, again, robots as lead characters. Tough, but they're funny and they're interesting. And if they. If they. If they're done right, they could be really cool and invigorating. Now crossover peel. I don't know. But I think the humor plus mystery part has a shot. I think it really does have a shot to be something. So I had Martha Wells down on my list.
- [25:23]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. In sci fi land. I guess to stay there. I was thinking about Mary Doria Russell for the Sparrow.
- [25:32]
Jeff O'Neill
Wow, you're bringing it way back.
- [25:34]
Roisin O'Donnell
I am.
- [25:34]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, yeah. I have Robbins on the brain and you have Russell on the brain.
- [25:38]
Roisin O'Donnell
It came up. We guested on the Books with Betsy podcast earlier this week. I don't know when that show was be out.
- [25:45]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't think it's out by the time you're listening to it.
- [25:47]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, I had occasion to talk, to Mention the Sparrows. I was thinking about that. You could do. Yeah, I think you could do the Sparrow. I would love to see that one. And what's a comp for that?
- [25:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Like, literally, what movie or TV show is a comp for this Sparrow? Like, I can't even feel what.
- [26:02]
Roisin O'Donnell
What would be like, I. I can't either. And on the lighter sci fi, like more just futuristic vibe, I would love to see somebody take on. On a visit from the Goon Squad and the Candy House. And if I had to pick, I would take the Candy House. Yeah. Jennifer Egan.
- [26:17]
Kate Alice Marshall
Come on, world.
- [26:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Rebecca. I mean, like, that's kind of where I'm with Zadie a little bit. These. Those things are such creatures of text that I'm like, I don't know. I would love to see it, personally.
- [26:27]
Roisin O'Donnell
I don't know.
- [26:28]
Jeff O'Neill
I mean, I don't know.
- [26:30]
Roisin O'Donnell
The Goon Squad is definitely a creature of text. Like the way that some of those chapters are formatted into, you know, like PowerPoint slide decks. But I think Candy House, you could get most of it done. Like, some of the book is presented as, you know, like instruction manuals for things. But you can elide that and go after, like, the bigger story there about technology that lets you upload your consciousness and lets you and other people revisit it and the resistance to that technology. Like, it's kind of similar to some of the subplots on Severance right now where, like, the main thing is happening inside the world of the company, where people are severed. But you know that there is a, like, anti that particular technology resistance happening out in the world.
- [27:12]
Jeff O'Neill
You're going to have to station 11 it a little bit to like, give it a little more of a story as much as a hang or an intellectual exercise or an aesthetic experience on the page. But it could. I mean, I would love to see a bad version of Candy House. That would be amazing even to see what would happen there.
- [27:29]
Roisin O'Donnell
Talk about an interesting mess.
- [27:31]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, you can. I was. I. Did you see Blitz this new Steve McQueen?
- [27:36]
Roisin O'Donnell
No, not yet.
- [27:36]
Jeff O'Neill
I want to watch that. But when I was trolling through movies to watch the other night and end up watching a music documentary from 2008 instead. But that's just who I am. I looked hard as one does. I was thinking about Shircha Ronan and she can get stuff made, right? Like, you know, it doesn't have to have a huge budget, but, you know, she. She can get Brooklyn made or, well, Blitz. That's the example I was thinking of. Like, again, Steve McQueen, World War II historical thing got made and I was like, all right, what could I leverage as. Sure, sure. Ronan loved the book or screenplay.
- [28:09]
Roisin O'Donnell
Interesting.
- [28:10]
Jeff O'Neill
I went with Maggie Shipstead.
- [28:12]
Roisin O'Donnell
I have Maggie Shipstead.
- [28:14]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay, good. I was like, if Shiro Ronan fell in love with the script for say, the Great Circle, that could be a very cool book. Like a limited series would be a very good part. Again, it's a lot of historical. I can't imagine planes are super cheap with biplanes and all that stuff, but I was like, I could actually see that happening. And Shipstead only has a couple of books. She's a wonderful writer, but I mean, she's not at Kingsolver's levels yet. Even so, I think it added a really good adaptation or, well, adaptation of any kind really could do wonders for people knowing who she is.
- [28:47]
Roisin O'Donnell
I agree. And since you've got that, since Great Circle is the character's whole life, you get an opportunity for a younger actress like Saoirse Ronan and then an opportunity for an older actress. I think the character lives until like her 70s or 80s. In the book we hear from her like pretty late in life. So you could get some interesting casting going. I also really think seating arrangements would be a super fun.
- [29:10]
Jeff O'Neill
Like I'm not even sure 90 minutes stared at that. I was like, did I read that? I don't remember.
- [29:15]
Roisin O'Donnell
I don't know if you did. I did. It was super fun. Like get the gang together over a wedding weekend like around Cape Cod. Disasters happen, secrets come out, you know, people make bad decisions. Things that happen at a long wedding weekend. It'd be. It would be a really fun summer watch. I'd love to see that happen for Maggie Shipstead. Let's see Wakey Wang on my list.
- [29:36]
Jeff O'Neill
I have Wakey Wang too.
- [29:38]
Roisin O'Donnell
Okay. Mostly brought to you by how much I loved the Rental House. But I also think Chemistry would be a great limited series. I really would love to see the. The Rental House brought to life and you could do it over the course of a movie or a limited run series of like, you know, the kind of the three signposts of like the three vacations that take place in the book and really mark those characters lives.
- [30:00]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't think there's enough there for a series, honestly. I think a 90 minute feature will do the trick for that one especially. But I think that, you know, indeed, that'd be a really good indie film that could be made. It would have been a really good Covid movie, frankly. You know, just need a Man. It would in a House out in the middle of the forest or something like that to shoot it. So I don't know. I think there's not quite enough story. There need to be like a murder. I mean it's just not. I mean, I don't get me wrong, I love it and I don't want it to be any different than it is. But if I'm trying to greenlight a 50 million dollar, even an 11 million.
- [30:29]
Roisin O'Donnell
Dollar whatever, it's a little quiet.
- [30:31]
Jeff O'Neill
It's a little quiet. Things that aren't quiet though. There's no reason that Peter Heller action adventure, outdoor books can't be movies. Great that we got one every few years. Why that we could do this. Get Josh Brolin to star in like half of them and you're off to the races. I think this works. I think there is gonna. Again, I don't know how much is smoke and how much is fire, but I've heard a lot about the dog stars, which is the first Heller I did has a little bit more speculative fiction element to it. But any of them honestly done well, you know, get one of the Cohens, I guess they kind of did a simple plan actually, but like just give him the script to a Peter Heller and go crazy.
- [31:18]
Roisin O'Donnell
I feel this way about Jane Harper. Like I think there's an adaptation.
- [31:21]
Jeff O'Neill
There was one with Eric Bana which was pretty good.
- [31:24]
Roisin O'Donnell
Okay, yeah, but like that since the main character is a thread through several of the books that gives you an easy, like multiple short seasons. It should be short seasons. But multiple short seasons of an adaptation I don't need. We don't need 10 episodes for a 250300 page mystery novel. Like keep it tight, make it interesting. But I would love to see Jane Harper like be. And just in general see her be better known among American readers.
- [31:52]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't think. I didn't put this down, but that made me think of Tana French, who I think is so well known among mystery readers that I don't think of her as needing anything other than to learn something about Chicago. Said her cop from Chicago. Actually seems like maybe he's been to Chicago once in his life. That's my ongoing bit about that. But I love those books. I don't think there's been one. Maybe there's been a BBC something or other, but you know.
- [32:11]
Roisin O'Donnell
Oh yeah, I don't believe there has either. Yeah. What's next for you?
- [32:14]
Jeff O'Neill
What's next for me? Okay, vanishing half, but that's one. But if I'm looking for like, if I'M trying to tap into that Sister. Is it Bad Sister? What's the one that. The Bad Sister Sisters.
- [32:32]
Roisin O'Donnell
Bad sisters on Apple. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bad sisters.
- [32:35]
Jeff O'Neill
Bad sisters. Gone Girl, Big Little Lies.
- [32:38]
Roisin O'Donnell
Literary feminist revenge thrillers.
- [32:40]
Jeff O'Neill
But it doesn't have to be revenge, but, like, it's literary mystery. Give me Katie Kitamura. One of those books would be fan. I mean, a Separation would be great. I'm really excited for the new one, but, like, me too. I think those work. I think those would work as an apple. Like, that could be a minute. Like, the mystery works a little bit better. Like six episodes. You get a great cast of really good, interesting locations. I think those would be dynamite. Dynamite.
- [33:07]
Roisin O'Donnell
I love this. I love this for you. Okay. Yeah, I totally support that choice. I want to talk about Jesmyn Ward for a minute.
- [33:17]
Jeff O'Neill
Okay. Tough. Okay.
- [33:20]
Roisin O'Donnell
Tough. Tough. The only one that I think you could really try is sing Unburied. Sing. Because it's road trip. Like, the subject matter is heavy, but it's a family in a car going to deal with family stuff. All of the others are either big and historical and a lot of production or such a tough hang that building an audience for it. And tough hang as in, like, amazing writing, but very difficult subject matter would just be difficult to build a big audience for. But sing Unburied. Sing. I think there's a possibility there, and I just want Jesmyn Ward to keep getting paid.
- [34:00]
Jeff O'Neill
I agree, though. I think whatever tenured professorship, she surely has somewhere after multiple National Book Awards. But that's. That's not TV money. That's not movie money. Yeah. I mean, I'd like to see it. It's hard to do. I'm worried because I've seen Morrison tried to be adapted, and it don't let us.
- [34:18]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. Beloved should. Can we just put the beloved adaptation, like, back into the vault Memory.
- [34:26]
Jeff O'Neill
Yes. There's part of me that's is glad that exists because I'm like, see how hard this is? Like, it's. That's. That's really hard stuff to do. I was also trying to think about, well, this is coming off my Yarrows mass. Like, there will be sometime another giant fantasy franchise and, like, who's waiting in the wings? And I wouldn't bet on this because the odds seem very bad of the book ever coming out. But Patrick Rothfuss, that series is really cool, and there was a lot of smoke about Lin Manuel Miranda was going to adapt it and, like, make it a musical. There's so much playing in it. But again, I think it fell apart. It's so much loot playing. It's so much about paying your magic school tuitions and playing the loot. It's amazing stuff. Again, the. The. The caveat here is I'd need to see the. The end of the series. I wouldn't sign anything until it's done. But if it ever does get did that was correct grammar, then, you know, I don't know what else is really out there. There's a lot of attention around this. Oneils Razor is very unhappy with me for even saying this out loud. But if it were ever to come to pass that this thing got completed, it has a chance to be, you know, an Alzheimer's. It already is amongst the people that read this kind of thing. That's why everyone's so frustrated, including me, who's a sort of armchair fantasy reader at this point. So that's almost too obvious. That's a little. It's been on the shelf a little long, to be honest. But anyway, it's out there. It certainly is.
- [36:03]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, I think that's a good one. You know, I'm really surprised. I'm gonna do a twofer that we don't have a signal adaptation of either Ann Patchett or Lauren Groff. I know there was a Bel Canto, but it was not the size of a signal adaptation. People don't talk about it and they're both so readable and so consistently good. Like any of Ann Patchett's would be fantastic. Lauren Groff is getting weirder as she goes, which I am deeply here for. Like, please bring it on. The graph is on is amazing, but I think Fates and Furies is probably the one. Arcadia would be the only one.
- [36:40]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I think Fates and the Furies is really the only one. I could see someone greenlighting. Like, it'd have to be an art project to take on Matrix or Vaster Wilds, which like Kelly Reichert maybe would.
- [36:52]
Roisin O'Donnell
Oh, yeah, yeah.
- [36:53]
Jeff O'Neill
That would be interesting, but I just don't see it.
- [36:57]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, but Ann Patchett, like, you could do the Dutch House, you could do Tom Lake, you could do Bel Canto, you could do State of Wonder if you wanted to go hang out in the rainforest for a while. But you could do some of them without really spending. Like Tom Lake and Dutch House especially would not be expensive productions.
- [37:18]
Jeff O'Neill
No, I feel like those are books that in the 90s absolutely would have been adapt adapted now.
- [37:25]
Roisin O'Donnell
Totally.
- [37:26]
Jeff O'Neill
It just feels like those kinds of books don't really get it. I mean, it's the King Solver of it all. Yeah, they don't. There's not quite enough mystery. There's not quite enough spin on the ball. I mean, they're, they're great, but they're, they're. That's the kind of thing that the Kitamuras in the world are not reacting against, but like not doing. Okay, that's been done. I'm doing other things in the world there. What always does play, though, is a mystery. And I don't have Freedom McFadden on the list because we are gwinning Florence Pugh in the House Maid and I think that's going to be a thing. And she's thing already. But I was looking for other mysteries.
- [38:00]
Roisin O'Donnell
Okay.
- [38:00]
Jeff O'Neill
And Brendan Slocum writes these music based mysteries that are like, someone stole a Stradivarius and we're in the world of music. They're pretty cool. It's like you could see kind of conclave vibes. Not. Not the Vatican, of course, but you know, you're an expensive museum or galleries and you're the among the world of the rich and you've got these expensive people. And the first one is this black violinist who has an expensive instrument and it gets stolen or does he lose it? And then it's something about the insurance. It's been a while since. And there's been a sequence of them and I think you could do them all fairly inexpensively, but I think they look dynamite on Amazon prime or something like this. I think they could be pretty cool. There may not be enough like we were talking about. What was it? The. The recruit? The Rami Malek? Like, oh, I was just a. But now I'm gonna.
- [38:52]
Roisin O'Donnell
The amateur. Yeah.
- [38:53]
Jeff O'Neill
I feel like you need a little more action than this might provide. And I haven't read them all, so maybe there's big sequences later. But a mystery set in an unusual world, at least one of them could be good for an adaptation and that would get the ball rolling. And he's getting subsequent deals, so I think they're selling okay. But it could be more of a name to have a series like this.
- [39:18]
Kate Alice Marshall
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- [41:37]
Roisin O'Donnell
That's this wasn't on my list, but that's making me think about the Margot Duahi series with the crime solving tattooed nun with a potty mouth. That would be super hard.
- [41:47]
Jeff O'Neill
Do you think four years ago that would have been a home run for someone?
- [41:50]
Roisin O'Donnell
I just don't know. Yeah, it's tough.
- [41:53]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't think it's gonna happen right now.
- [41:55]
Roisin O'Donnell
I know my high production value dream that's never gonna happen. But I'm gonna talk about it is. I would love to see Northwoods by Daniel Mason get the same kind of treatment that they did with here with the Tom Hanks movie at the end of last year. Like fix the camera in one place and show us the life of this plot of land and then this house over those hundreds of years and like go into the house. It doesn't have to be quite like as static as I think here looked. I didn't see it because it also did not look very good. But like that's it's such a wonderful book. And it remains impossible to really describe it to someone I was listening to, I think, like Kara Swisher's podcast, and she was recommending it to someone. She's like, it's about the life of this house over a couple hundred years. And it's like, lady, that's as good as a description as you can get of that book. And it's a terrible description of that horrible pitch.
- [42:49]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. That would be a high degree of difficulty. That's like a Werner Herzog documentary slash, whatever.
- [42:56]
Roisin O'Donnell
It's a beautiful dream.
- [42:58]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. What if there was a grizzly man? But no grizzly and no man. That's the pitchfork. That's the pitchfork, I guess. Let's see. Where do I want to go? I don't have a good transition here. I think Linda Holmes has a problem in this regard, which is people watch much worse romantic comedy on streaming services, and so there's no reason to pay for Linda Holmes's books.
- [43:27]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah.
- [43:28]
Jeff O'Neill
Because they're.
- [43:28]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. Emily Henry's getting that money.
- [43:32]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, but she doesn't sell as well as. I mean, that's the problem. Like, she's in this weird. She's kind of in an uncanny valley where she's not so cranking out Hallmark movies. But she's also not Emily Henry or Ali. He's a wood. Or one of these yet. But I think I would enjoy very much a again another movie that gets made in the late 90s, early 2000s. I'm sure one of these gets hopefully styling Lauren Graham. As I always wanted to happen.
- [43:55]
Roisin O'Donnell
I just read the new one back after this. I'll talk about it on Front List Foyer this week. But the main character is a podcast editor. Jeff. There are jokes about dynamic ad insertion.
- [44:06]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, she does this. She knows what she speaks. This is no only murders in the building podcasting garbage.
- [44:14]
Roisin O'Donnell
It's so great. And we got what was the Kristen Bell rom com series nobody wants last year? That. That she's a podcaster. But, like, she's a podcaster and the character in this book is an editor. And it's not about, like, really the content of the show that much. Yeah. Linda Holmes. All the adaptations all the time. Thank you.
- [44:33]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. But unfortunately, it's like not a Rolls Royce, but also not a used Toyota in terms of the market. Like, I'm not sure where it is, but I would like.
- [44:40]
Roisin O'Donnell
She is in a weird zone, but I would love to see somebody do it. Like, I mean, I've watched every season of the Virgin River Netflix adaptation, having never Read the books. That shit is terrible. And I'm gonna keep watching.
- [44:52]
Jeff O'Neill
So you're not only the president, but.
- [44:55]
Roisin O'Donnell
Also a number I know.
- [44:57]
Jeff O'Neill
Please. You're part of the problem here.
- [44:59]
Roisin O'Donnell
I. I want a good rom com to watch. Please.
- [45:04]
Jeff O'Neill
It's like Rapunzel up in the tower. Just, I need someone. I need Linda. Come save me from watching Virgin river season 11.
- [45:13]
Roisin O'Donnell
When those seasons drop, though, my text threads with my girlfriends are hysterical because, I mean, it's just such a soap opera. It's terrible.
- [45:21]
Jeff O'Neill
So you and I were texting. No, I was texting you and you're like, jeff, you're out of your mind. When I was asking about, do you think Bertino has sold more books than George Saunders?
- [45:31]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, you did have a weird moment there, but I supported your optimism.
- [45:34]
Jeff O'Neill
I just, you know, I just. My, my family and I are watching the Sherlock BBC show with Cumberbatch, and there's a moment where he doesn't know. He knows everything, but he didn't know that the earth circles the sun. This was my moment of not knowing. They're circling the sun here. Let me just say it's not close. Bertino. I mean, Beauty Land's done. Okay. But then I just saw the. The paperback for Beauty Land is different than the hardcover, which is not a good sign for sales. And okay, if I'm going to use one of my wish casting adaptation chips, put it on Beauty Land, put it on two Amity Cat's Pajamas, and maybe people will fall in love with it. And then Bertino can keep writing books and, and maybe sell one tenth the number of books that George Sanders fourth most popular book has sold, but it is a little bit. One, two. Where I don't know how much of a brand you can establish because the brand is do whatever, which is great for me, but as a cultural enterprise, it's a little more difficult. But I'd love to see one.
- [46:36]
Roisin O'Donnell
You could spin the, like, the greater Universe of the 2:00am at the Cat's Pajamas world into multiple seasons of a show like that. There are so many characters.
- [46:46]
Jeff O'Neill
It's so 3am at the Cat's Pajamas, 4am at the Cat's Pajamas, 5am at.
- [46:51]
Roisin O'Donnell
The Cat'S Pajamas Brunch at the Cat's.
- [46:53]
Jeff O'Neill
Pajamas, 9am at the cat's Pajamas.
- [46:57]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, but like, it has a Stars Hollow quality. That little. The town that the book is set in, and there are a couple tertiary characters in the book, but you could, I think you could build that world out and really ride that. That for a while.
- [47:09]
Jeff O'Neill
Parakeet and Beautyland are then so weird and exit.
- [47:12]
Roisin O'Donnell
They are.
- [47:13]
Jeff O'Neill
It's going to be weird too. So I don't know that like we're going to establish the Bertino universe with the Outlier. You can't do that. I don't think that works very well.
- [47:20]
Roisin O'Donnell
I don't know. I'm surprised you haven't talked about deep, deep Kapoor yet. And then age.
- [47:25]
Jeff O'Neill
Just one book or a couple books. There's two. I mean these other people have been around in my, in my life for a little bit longer. So I'm not speaking of extended universes. You know how like True Detective has multiple seasons and they're sort of maybe related and maybe not, but they're kind of in the same world. I think a Louise Erdrick expanded universe would be kind of cool. Again, we really need old, older 90s Hollywood to make grown up movies for adults that appear in theaters and don't bomb without like massive speculative elements. But you could do Roundhouse. Plague of the Sentence is a cool little show.
- [48:02]
Roisin O'Donnell
I mean like, yeah, you could connect some of them in ways that she hasn't connected them on the page.
- [48:07]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know if the, if the Res Dogs team are looking for something to do. I'm sure they've considered what their next steps is. But I think it would be amazing to see those folks take on an airdrie book as a movie or limited series or there's mystery and you know, I just think it would be super cool if done well.
- [48:24]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. I was thinking about the Res Dogs crew for Tommy Orange. Like because you can take They're There and Wandering Stars and like if Taylor Sheridan can do 900 season of Yellowstone and then be like what about a spin off set 150 years in the past and it's Harrison Ford instead we can take Tommy Orange and do like present day South LA and also go back in time into the 1800s and like move all over the place. It's tough. Only two books and Wandering Stars didn't get nearly as much attention as either of us would like for it to have. But I think there's a lot of space there. Especially especially there there. Like there are so many characters, I.
- [49:04]
Jeff O'Neill
Think they're there by itself.
- [49:05]
Roisin O'Donnell
Such a great opportunity for a cast. Yeah, yeah.
- [49:08]
Jeff O'Neill
Once you said Taylor Sheridan, I just realized like I can't believe it would be an amazing outcome for me or a horrible one if he got a hold of the Peter Heller catalog. Oh, because he could make them but I might hate them.
- [49:22]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah.
- [49:23]
Jeff O'Neill
I don't know. I've only got one left. Do you have anybody left on your board?
- [49:28]
Roisin O'Donnell
I have a couple, but I can pick. I'll pick one.
- [49:31]
Jeff O'Neill
I mean, look, I saved the. It's just sitting there. I don't know what's happening. It might be too expensive or whatever, but what's going on with the Night Circus? Why can't we get this thing? Do we need to make it a musical? Great. Let's put on stage. Let's get Stephen Schwartz or whoever we can wicked this. Let's wicked it.
- [49:48]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah, Wicked. Wicked. The crap out of the Night Circus.
- [49:51]
Jeff O'Neill
The crap out of the Night Circle. It's like, we've got to do something about this.
- [49:56]
Roisin O'Donnell
This is unacceptable and it is unacceptable. And the book remains like it has no read alikes. For as much romance and fantasy and romance fantasy mixture as we have in the world right now and as many attempts as have been made to write something that feels like the Night Circus, we're still. We still get requests for what should I recommend to people who love the Night Circus and they're really. There is nothing. That's a good checker on a checker there. So can we please get a movie?
- [50:26]
Jeff O'Neill
Help everyone out. And for those of you on Booktok out there, does. Do any of the romantasy heads talk about. Does it have any presence in that world at all? Because what are you doing? What are we doing? Like this is. This is. This is prime cut. We're eating ground chuck out here with Onyx Storm. There's filet mignon sitting there. That combines elements of romance and fantasy and nothing's happening. It would be more expensive. It's not. There's no dragons in it. But there's magic and Cirque D Rev and the night stuff would be in magic. But that seems like a much easier lift than 40 dragons battering weavers. And then also sex scenes that you've got to cut away from and make everyone mad. But like then I still don't understand. I still don't understand what the hell it must. Maybe it's in development hell. Someone's looked at it.
- [51:13]
Roisin O'Donnell
Or somebody's just sitting on the options for But Wicked.
- [51:16]
Jeff O'Neill
The. It's wicked but a love story with dueling magicians. Let's go. Come on.
- [51:24]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's a great. That's a great one. I don't have one that's better than that to end on.
- [51:32]
Jeff O'Neill
So I did put it in the stinger spot. I was like, I can't start with that.
- [51:36]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. Our plea to Hollywood is, please do something with the Night Circus. Please. Now that I'm on the Grady Hendrix train, I want to see some Grady Hendrix adaptations.
- [51:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Are we getting one of those? Hold on. Keep talking. I'm going to look up because I.
- [51:50]
Roisin O'Donnell
Feel like this is the only one I've read, obviously, is the Wayward Witchcraft for Wayward Girls. But I think you can do that at a relatively affordable production. You just need, like, some witchy effects. But most of it is teenage girls in a house in the sweaty summer in Florida plotting things against people who are being terrible to them. And it would be super fun.
- [52:12]
Jeff O'Neill
So the final girl support group was optioned by Annapurna, Is that right? Hold on, hold on. Let me see real quick. Yeah. Intend to turn the novel into a television series. But again, who knows? He wrote a screenplay for Horror Store. I guess that got optioned. Interesting. Okay, so it feels like it. Give me the job already. As Vince Vaughn says in Swingers, like, just, someone's gotta, like, actually commit to doing one of those.
- [52:39]
Roisin O'Donnell
Make it happen.
- [52:40]
Jeff O'Neill
Because the Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires, it was also optioned, but then it got killed. And the streaming service is gonna do it. I don't know. Until really until I see a trailer now. Oh, yeah, I don't believe. I just assume it. Like, I don't know what the language is for for sure this is happening. That isn't a trailer. Maybe those of you in the rights community can tell me. But until I see a trailer, I'm like, probably not. That's my base case for this.
- [53:07]
Roisin O'Donnell
Or like, at least still shots of people in costumes on a set. Like, they are the Damon.
- [53:13]
Jeff O'Neill
The Damon and the Odyssey. Well, and also, Nolan doesn't do that. Like, Nolan's saying, I'm gonna make the Odyssey.
- [53:18]
Roisin O'Donnell
I'm not worried about the Christopher Nolan movies actually just end up in production hell.
- [53:24]
Jeff O'Neill
But what'd you think of Damon wearing the horse? The horse helmet.
- [53:27]
Roisin O'Donnell
I really was enjoying my theory that we were going to get Tom Holland as young Odysseus and Matt Damon as older, returning Odysseus. But I'm here for it. I think it'll be Tom Holland as Telemachus. They will be interesting. Daemon can do Grizzled. He's good at action. It'll be fine. And the rest of the cast is incredible. My real question is, how do you even. In the Christopher Nolan length of a film, how do you do the Odyssey in, like, what scenes is he gonna pick? What are. And what's gonna get cut. And how mad are we gonna be about that?
- [54:03]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. If there is no skill in Charybdis, I'm taken to the streets. I'm gonna tell you right now, not, not, not my Mediterranean hashtag, not my Mediterranean skillet.
- [54:14]
Roisin O'Donnell
And Charybdis really lends itself well to a chant. Good luck with your protests.
- [54:18]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, I'm sure I'm pronouncing that right. I'm sure the Greek scholars are like, yep, you nailed it. Got it, Jeff. No notes.
- [54:24]
Roisin O'Donnell
We got to work on katabasis first.
- [54:27]
Jeff O'Neill
Katabasis. That, to me, is like trying to tie my shoelaces with my left hand. Like that. There's just no world that that feels right.
- [54:38]
Roisin O'Donnell
Hell of a flex from Rebecca Kuang. Just here's a book title that you need to understand Greek to pronounce correctly.
- [54:46]
Jeff O'Neill
Lord, help.
- [54:47]
Roisin O'Donnell
Anyway, Aaron Morgan Stern, where is the Night Circus movie? Please.
- [54:53]
Jeff O'Neill
If I could get someone, I wonder who I could pitch for first edition to be like, what the hell is going on? Because there's got to be a story. You know, it's been kicked around. You know, there's been, like, all kinds.
- [55:04]
Roisin O'Donnell
Are they allowed to talk about it?
- [55:06]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, there was. You know, there was probably one. Like, it was going to star Kate Bosworth, and she was going to sing and, like, what? But, like, yeah, who knows? All the things that have been attached to that.
- [55:18]
Roisin O'Donnell
I'm sure that they've had some interesting meetings for that. As I was googling, just, like, refreshing my memory about things that I might like to see adapted, I learned that there's never been an adaptation of Catcher in the Rye. And I just need to say that's surprising to me.
- [55:32]
Jeff O'Neill
Well, Salinger famously promiscuous with his words and writes. I don't think there's been a Salinger adaptation at all.
- [55:40]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah.
- [55:40]
Jeff O'Neill
Not that anyone knows Franny or Zoe or any of those other kinds of things.
- [55:43]
Roisin O'Donnell
Yeah. So canonical texts kind of surprising.
- [55:47]
Jeff O'Neill
My hot take about catching the ride is that. Actually, it's good, but that's a different podcast. I know everyone has turned as, like, Holden Coffee is, like, insufferable. You know what? Have you met a teenager?
- [55:57]
Roisin O'Donnell
I mean, you did your defense of David Foster Wallace last year, so we're due for a moment in defensive catcher.
- [56:02]
Jeff O'Neill
And, well, I like to buy low. I'm the Warren Buffett of literary takes. When everyone else is soured, I'm buying at a 9 price to earnings ratio. I'm getting it cheap, baby. Y'all about here buying Onyx Storm And Nvidia at, you know, 50 times 20, 26 earnings.
- [56:19]
Roisin O'Donnell
You know what I want to see? Site traffic the day you write Catcher in the Rye is good. Actually, please do it.
- [56:27]
Jeff O'Neill
The problem with that take is I need to reread it, and there's a chance that it sucks.
- [56:34]
Roisin O'Donnell
Either way, you get a fun story.
- [56:36]
Jeff O'Neill
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Salinger and Wallace themselves may be undesirable or, you know, not who you want to hang out with or have your family members hang out with for sure. But most books like that, there is really something to them, else they don't become a thing. So anyway, just like the Night Circus, which should become a giant thing.
- [56:55]
Roisin O'Donnell
It should be Wicked.
- [56:57]
Jeff O'Neill
It.
- [56:57]
Roisin O'Donnell
Please give it a Wicked.
- [56:59]
Jeff O'Neill
Just give it a Wicked.
- [57:00]
Roisin O'Donnell
All right, Rebecca, what is John M. Chu doing after Wicked? Come on.
- [57:03]
Jeff O'Neill
Rolling around in money. Well, remember when Rob Marshall wrote Chicago? And then he's like, I can do anything. We're getting all the money. And has never made another good money again. That's what you have to watch out.
- [57:14]
Roisin O'Donnell
That's true. Because he's like, it's dangerous.
- [57:16]
Jeff O'Neill
It's dangerous because, like, I thought I was the reason this was special sauce. Like, actually, Chicago rules. And that looked amazing. And Catherine Zeta Jones, let's be careful out there, fellas, because she was unbelievable in that movie. And, like, Wicked is like the songs. Like, if you got the songs right. We talked about this recently, anyway, so I don't have to do that spiel again. I don't know. I don't know. All right. Book riot.com. listen for show notes. The show notes to this will be nothing. We're not putting these in the list. So if you want to find the Patreon substack or. Or the Instagram links, you can do it over there. I am posting a little bit of, like, breaking news kinds of stuff on the Book Riot podcast. Like, you know, I did the. The Damon Horsehair main thing. I thought it looked pretty good. Yeah. So if you're interested in following along. And I'm gonna do shorter clips of some of the stuff we do, just voiceovers. We're not gonna do our faces on this yet because we haven't figured that out. But I did figure out how to put audio over stills in a way that might make sense. I'm gonna play around with that. Recka Romney on First Edition is coming out tomorrow once this has gone live. So go check that out over there. Yep, that's it. Rebecca, thanks.
- [58:21]
Roisin O'Donnell
Thank you. It was fun. Thanks so much for listening today. We hope you'll Enjoy this audiobook. Excerpt from nesting by Roisin O'Donnell read by Louisa Harland Kira steps out of.
- [58:39]
Rebecca Schinsky
The car and a cold sea wind catches her breath, whipping her hair across her face. After some manoeuvring, ignoring tuts from the passenger seat, she's managed to squeeze her old silver Micra into a tight parking spot across the road from Skerry's beach. The April afternoon sky stretches bright and clear above the rooftops of the sea front terraces. Gulls glide as if manipulated by invisible wires, their taut wings motionless. The passenger door slams. Ryan rounds the car and she hears him open the boot. Kira turns, pushing her hair from her eyes, struggling against the weight of the wind. She hauls open the back door to a torrent of Me first, me first, me first. Four year old Sophie has unbuckled her own seatbelt. She squeezes under her mum's arm and jumps onto the pavement, dark pigtails flying. Yes, the sea. Can we build a castle, Daddy? Kira doesn't catch Ryan's reply. She's too busy grappling with the buckle on 2 year old Ella's grimy red car seat. This car needs to be cleaned. Deep cleaned. Christ, that's why they always take her old banger to the beach instead of Ryan's pristine Jeep. Finally the buckle opens. Voila. There we go, missus. Freedom. Up, Mammy. Ella reaches out one of her chubby arms, still so young that she has dimples where her elbows should be. Her other arm is hooked as always around Hoppy, the blue rabbit with the love heart sewn on his chest, threadbare in parts, stuffing gone lumpy. He looks somehow both careworn and wise. Come on up then. She kisses Ella's cheek and nuzzles her neck, inhaling the faint smell of bananas and porridge. Sophie has skipped ahead into the sand dunes with Ryan. There's something comical about their mismatched figures. Her fluorescent orange cycling shorts, butterfly top and sparkly hair clips alongside his black T shirt, pressed jeans, dark gray hair combed neatly in place. Despite her father's grip on her hand, Sophie is still managing to dance. Sharp blonde stems of sand reed scratch Kira's ankles as she weaves through the dunes with Ella on her hip. You see the sea, Ella love. The strand curves in a crescent around the bay, striated with bands of crushed shells, driftwood, seaweed. RTE forecast 20 degrees for today and April high, which clearly didn't factor in the bitter gusts sweeping off the Irish Sea Sunday afternoon. The beach is dotted with clusters of people huddling under coats or sheltering behind windbreakers, determined to make the best of it. At the end of the boardwalk her runners sink into the sand. When she's caught up with Ryan she puts Ella down and stands beside him, looking out to sea. Tide's out, she comments for something to say. Ryan turns to her. I'm taking them swimming. His grey eyes study her face, testing her. He was in such good form this morning when he announced they were going to the beach. But already something has changed. What has she done this time? Her heart begins to quicken. Swimming as in like paddling? Sure, they'll love that. I said swimming. Proper swimming. They're big enough but they don't know how to swim. She tries to laugh. It's bitter.
- [62:25]
Jeff O'Neill
Ryan.
- [62:25]
Rebecca Schinsky
They'll freeze. He folds his arms across his chest, his lips set in a thin determined line. She hears her mum saying pick your battles, love. Okay, swimming. Why not? I'll stick the wetsuits on them there. Girls, come here to me, will you? The wetsuits are from last summer. Ella's is so tight she can't bend her arms. Ryan stands watching as she hauls Sophie's back zip up, lifting her daughter off her feet. Hey Mammy, stop you're hurting me. There now hun. Perfect. Sophie waddles away like a bad tempered penguin. Imagine if Sinead were here, how she'd laugh at the sight of her nieces. Ryan is pulling off his T shirt, frowning. Did you not get them new wetsuits? I thought I gave you the money. She mumbles something about the suits being out of stock and busies herself unlacing her runners and rolling her black leggings up over her knees. Feeling his stare on her. She ties her hair back, zips up her pale pink fleece. Ella toddles up and grabs her hand. Mammy, come.