Notes From Crew Quarters: Movie Magic
This week, Ethan Brightbill asked our editors which novels, stories and other works are overdue for a film adaptation.
Jacqueline Boucher, Managing Editor
The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Because the world needs more movies about young rich people at liberal arts colleges teasing out their relationships with one another while contemplating the nature of beauty. Plus, I mean, murder most foul.
Colton Lindsey, Associate Fiction Editor
I wouldn't mind seeing Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy on the big screen. Perhaps have Quentin Tarantino put it all together. Those would be some movies I would rush to the box office to see.
Jason Teal, Associate Fiction Editor
Everything by Matthew Derby. Short stories so. His books are bonkers worlds. Would love to see somebody take a crack at adapting one of his weirdo literary sci-fi spins. Imagining a feature-length animation, but live action would be acceptable. I think his collaborative novel/iPhone app The Silent History has been optioned already...
Failing that, Shane Jones's Light Boxes was optioned by Spike Jonze years ago, and nothing came of it. I can't wait for Doctors by Dash Shaw to be worked into something. Such a neat graphic novel, but David S. Goyer attached gives me sweats. Dream team: Charles Yu's How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe penned by Charlie Kaufman.
Alissa Nutting's Tampa trumps all this now because Harmony Korine is attached.
Sara Ryan, Associate Poetry Editor
I'm reading Kelly Link's Get in Trouble right now for my 211 class, and we're only on the second story, but right now, both of them seem movie-worthy to me. Kind of weird, fantastical, magical, dark and twisted story lines.
Hayli Cox, Associate Nonfiction Editor
For sure Toni Morrison's Jazz, and probably Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn because why not?
E. Flores, Associate Poetry Editor
I think there's something to Theodor Geisel's "Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are?" that would be really well translated into film. The context of the novel in the 70s holds just as strong today. There's also this timelessness to the language and sentence structure that Geisel employs whose quality, quite frankly, hasn't been reached ever since.
