Stephen Beachy's "boneyard"

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Stephen Beachy is the author of the novels The Whistling Song and Distortion, as well as the twinned novellas Some Phantom/No Time Flat. His writing has appeared in BOMB, The New York Times Magazine, Chicago Review, Best Gay American Fiction, New York magazine and elsewhere. Raised by an ex-Amish father in Iowa, he now lives in California and teaches at the University of San Francisco.

Here he shares some casting ideas for an adaptation of his new novel, boneyard:

If they make boneyard into a movie, Justin Bieber would probably have to play the disturbed Amish boy at its center, Jake Yoder. He looks like a disturbed Amish boy, doesn't he? He doesn't really look like Jake, who has darker hair and bluer eyes and inappropriate affect, but we could work around that. I'm also a character in my book, and so is the editor, Judith Owsley Brown - we write battling footnotes that interpret Jake Yoder's text. Judith would definitely have to be played by Naomi Watts, who can do that kind of mildly uptight but morally concerned thing quite well, and who's just so brilliant there isn't much she can't do. I would like to be played by Barbara Hershey in male drag. Ever since I saw Barbara get raped by an invisible entity in The Entity I've felt an odd kinship with her, as I often feel as if something invisible and malevolent is touching me inappropriately. Maybe it's just a metaphor for capitalism or technology, but since boneyard deals with entities, abuse, horror and malevolent psychologists, her presence would add some rich meta-layers.

Learn more about the book and author at Stephen Beachy's website; view the boneyard trailer.

--Marshal Zeringue