Publishing’s Most-Wanted Adaptations

I’ve read and enjoyed a bunch of the selections. Here are just a few off-the-dome highlights and how they could be done.

• Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor reads like a house on fire, would offer fun, chew-up-the-scenery roles for a large cast, and the variety of settings around India, ranging from big cities to small mountain villages, would be super fun to see on screen. This one calls for Apple’s deep pockets and willingness to produce adaptations based on less-well-known titles. I think it would work best as a splashy two-hour film, but it could also work well as a one-season limited series. FX and Hulu did so well with Shōgun, let’s put them in the running, too.
• The Bee Sting by Paul Murray is the project I want Sharon Horgan to pick up when she’s finished with Bad Sisters. A multi-generational family drama set in Ireland, this would lend itself well to a few seasons of the good old fashioned prestige television treatment. HBO, where you at?
• We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry is one of the most fun novels I’ve read in the last few years, and it would be an absolute party on screen. You get ’80s fashion and pop culture, a huge and diverse cast of teenage girls, and the reliably entertaining accoutrement of Salem, Massachusetts and its witchy history. Let’s hand this one to the Showtime folks who are running Yellowjackets, call Emilio Estevez to do a cameo as someone’s dad (a notebook with his ’80s dreamboat face on it serves an important purpose in the story), and figure out a crossover-universe event with the Hocus Pocus crew.
• North Woods by Daniel Mason is singular and inventive, really more of a vibe than anything else. The story, such as it is, chronicles a few centuries in the life of a cabin in the woods of Maine. Fix a camera in one spot, and let’s make this one Robert Zemeckis’s post-Here mulligan. This one goes on the big screen, no question.
• S.A. Cosby’s Razorblade Tears would make a hell of a summer blockbuster. The story follows two older men—one Black, one white—whose sons, gay men who were married to each other, have been murdered. Get Denzel Washington and Billy Bob Thornton, and let’s get into it.

I’d be remiss not to note that Klara and the Sun and James, two incredible novels that have been at the top of my personal wishlist, also appear on The Adaptation List. A film adaptation of Klara directed by Taika Waititi is in production now, due out sometime next year, and Waititi is also in talks to direct the film adaptation of James.

The Best Stocking Stuffers for Readers

Treat yourself and your favorite book lovers to these small gifts for the holidays.