Jacqueline E. Luckett's "Passing Love"

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Jacqueline E. Luckett worked in sales for Xerox for twenty years. During that time she married, raised a family, and took creative writing classes where she reignited her love of writing.

In 2004, she formed the Finish Party (featured in O Magazine, October 2007) along with seven other women writers-of-color. She calls these outstanding women her mentors and advisors, her friends and the toughest (and most loving) readers around.

Here Luckett shares some ideas for the lead actors in an adaptation of her new novel, Passing Love:

Passing Love: The Movie! If it could happen to other authors, it could happen to me. Right? Right!

There are two leading roles in Passing Love that actresses, filmmakers, and directors should be fighting over. Passing Love is the story of two women who believe that going to Paris will change their lives. The story moves back and forth between the present day and the jazzed-fueled Paris of the 1950s.

Nicole, the present day character, is in the middle of her life. Nicole had deferred her dream to go to Paris because of fear and complacency. Her goal is to shake things up, to step out of the ordinary, to do something she’s never done before. She’s spurred to go to Paris by a friend. Browsing through the city she finds a photo at an small antiques store that impacts her family. Her simple vacation turns into an adventure.

Angela Bassett! Are you available? She’s a bit young for the role, but she’d make a great, intense Nicole. Angela has the ability to mold herself to a character and make an audience love her.

Ruby’s story begins when she’s a sixteen-year-old in Mississippi 1944—the novel follows her over a period of 60 years. She’s salty, determined, and fearless.

If either Dorothy Dandridge or Lena Horne were alive (and young) either one of them would have made a perfect, sultry Ruby especially as the older Ruby we see at the end of the story. Their allure and sexiness were in the back of my mind when I first thought of Ruby. Since neither woman is available, I visualize Halle Berry as the perfect mixture of naughty and nice that embodies Ruby.

Ahem! Ladies, are you ready?

Learn more about the book and author at Jacqueline E. Luckett's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Passing Love.

--Marshal Zeringue