Joanne Rendell's "Out of the Shadows"

Joanne Rendell's novels include The Professors' Wives' Club, Crossing Washington Square, and the recently released Out of the Shadows.

Here she shares some ideas for director and cast of a big screen adaptation of Out of the Shadows:

When I fantasize about Out of the Shadows coming out on the big screen, I can’t help but think of the 2002 movie Possession (Neil LaBute’s screen adaptation of A.S. Byatt’s novel of the same name). My novel tells the story of Clara Fitzgerald, a woman who thinks she is related to the author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley. On her journey to learn the truth, Clara uncovers startling secrets about the past and her present. The book is told from alternating points of view between Clara and the young Mary Shelley preparing to write Frankenstein. Like Possession, it weaves a historical story into a very contemporary one and tries to tease out the echoes between past and present – and our possible future too.

Because of the similarities with Possession, I’d love to see Gywneth Paltrow playing Clara just as she played the lead in the LaBute movie. Paltrow has a fascinating and paradoxical quality about her: aloof yet vulnerable; feminine and beautiful but also regal and tough. Clara is a similarly paradoxical woman in Out of the Shadows. She’s an accomplished professor, a beautiful and tender woman. But she’s been living too long in the shadow of her very successful fiancé. They have moved from city to city, university to university, following his meteoric rise in the world of genetic research. Somewhere along the way, Clara’s dreams and passions have been lost. Her mother has also just died and this loss has set her adrift. Out of the Shadows charts her journey of self-discovery and finding out where her heart truly belongs.

Alongside Paltrow, I imagine an actor like Billy Crudup playing Clara’s fiancé. Crudup did a great job playing the slick, handsome, but ultimately spiky ex-husband in the recent movie Eat Pray Love. Anthony is a similarly handsome and polished man, but he has a darker side too where his hubris and narcissism reside.

A movie adaptation of Out of the Shadows would need two actors to play Mary Shelley as a young girl and as a teenager. I recently watched the new BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility (so wonderful!) and a young actress called Lucy Boynton played the youngest Dashwood sister, Margaret. Boynton exuded a feisty, adventuresome but sweet charm that would fit a young Shelley. As for the teenage Mary, I imagine someone like Anna Paquin, although she is a teenager no longer! Like the headstrong but thoughtful Mary, there is something soulful and smart, passionate and strong about Paquin.

Anna Paquin reminds me of my dream director too. In short, Jane Campion (Paquin was the little girl in the beautiful and tragic movie The Piano, of course). No one does atmospheric historicals or unique dramas about women quite the way Campion does.

Learn more about the book and author at Joanne Rendell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Rick Mofina's "The Panic Zone"

Rick Mofina is a former crime reporter and the award-winning author of several acclaimed thrillers. He's interviewed murderers face-to-face on death row and patrolled with the LAPD and the RCMP. His true-crime articles have appeared in the New York Times, Marie Claire, Reader's Digest and Penthouse. He's reported from the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, Qatar and Kuwait's border with Iraq.

Mofina's novels include Every Fear, A Perfect Grave, Six Seconds, Vengeance Road, and the latest, The Panic Zone.  His thoughts about the actors who might star in an adaptation of The Panic Zone:

If my book The Panic Zone were made into a movie, I would cast Ethan Hawke in the role of Jack Gannon, the New York-based wire service reporter on the trail of a global plot to change the world. As the architect of that plot, Doctor Gretchen Sutsoff, the former CIA scientist, I would cast Meryl Streep or Glenn Close. I see George Clooney as Lancer, the federal security agent, working desperately connecting the dots and in the role of Emma Lane, the tormented young mother searching for her baby boy, I would cast Ellen Page.

Learn more about the book and author at Rick Mofina's website.

The Page 69 Test: Every Fear.

My Book, The Movie: A Perfect Grave.

The Page 69 Test: Six Seconds.

The Page 69 Test: Vengeance Road.

Writers Read: Rick Mofina.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Katrina Kittle's "The Blessings of the Animals"

Katrina Kittle is the author of Traveling Light, Two Truths and a Lie, and The Kindness of Strangers. The Kindness of Strangers was a BookSense pick and the winner of the 2006 Great Lakes Book Award for Fiction. Early chapters from that novel earned her grants from both the Ohio Arts Council and Culture Works. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Spalding University in Louisville.

Here she shares her preferences for the above-the-line talent in an adaptation of her latest novel, The Blessings of the Animals:

What a fun, fun game! I've been playing "casting director" for my other novels for some time, but since The Blessings of the Animals has only been out a couple of months, it was the first time I was exploring casting for these characters. I had some readers help me out with suggestions. It's a blast to cast A-list actors in ALL the roles, even the smaller ones and not have to consider budget at all. Oh, if only it really worked that way!

First of all, I'd want Jodie Foster to direct it. Her direction of Home for the Holidays was brilliant, and showed her deft hand with the drama/comedy balance in family stories.

My top choice for Cami is Laura Linney (but the short list included Julianne Moore and Kate Winslet). My top choice for Bobby was Dominic West (but top contenders were Hank Azaria and Robert Downey Jr. Of course, friends accuse me of casting Robert Downey Jr. in everything!)

The only casting choices no one questioned and that everyone who participated in my little poll embraced with total approval were the Davids. As Davy, I want Neil Patrick Harris, and for his partner, Big David, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

My dream actors to play Cami's parents would be Meryl Streep and John Lithgow.

Vijay would be played by Naveen Andrews (I think my friends have forgiven me for suggesting, "Don't forget that Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for an Oscar for playing an African-American, so I see no reason why he couldn't play an Indian").

Dubey would be played by Michael C. Hall, since he's so genius at capturing that frozen emotional depth. He could show us how shut off and afraid Dubey is, at the same he could show us the potential underneath all that.

I guess I should stop there, with the major roles...but it was fun to assign big name stars to even the smaller parts! We can dream, can't we?

All I know for sure is that this movie would need a big, talented team of animal handlers!

Learn more about the book and author at Katrina Kittle's website.

Writers Read: Katrina Kittle.

The Page 69 Test: The Blessings of the Animals.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Thomas W. Young's "The Mullah's Storm"

Thomas W. Young has logged nearly 4,000 hours as a flight engineer for the Air National Guard in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, Kosovo, and elsewhere, including Latin America, the Horn of Africa, and the Far East. Military honors include two Air Medals, three Aerial Achievement Medals, and the Air Force Combat Action Medal. He continues to serve with the Air National Guard as a Senior Master Sergeant.

He holds degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and studied writing there and at the Sewanee Writers' Conference, among other places. He is also the author of the oral history The Speed of Heat: An Airlift Wing at War in Iraq and Afghanistan, and contributed to the anthology Operation Homecoming, edited by Andrew Carroll.

Here Young explains which actors might best portray the lead characters in a big screen adaptation of  The Mullah's Storm, his first significant work of fiction:

If a director chose to bring The Mullah's Storm to the screen, he or she wouldn't need a lot of special effects. With the exception of the opening scene involving the shootdown of a C-130 transport plane, the bulk of the film would require only two strong leading actors--one male and one female--a few extras, and mountains and snow. Lots of mountains and lots of snow.

The two main characters, Air Force navigator Michael Parson and a woman Army translator--Master Sergeant Gold--embark on a journey of survival through the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan. While fleeing for their lives, they must also hold onto a prisoner--an important Taliban mullah--who was bound for prison and interrogation when their aircraft went down.

Parson can handle himself on the ground--he's a lifelong outdoorsman from Colorado. But as a flyboy, he's not a Special Forces badass. The actor playing him would need to show competence and military bearing, but with a hint of vulnerability. I've always thought Eric Bana did a fantastic job in Black Hawk Down. Barry Pepper made a highly believable World War II sniper in Saving Private Ryan. Either of these gentlemen could make a good Parson--an aviator who's just had an aircraft blown out from under him and seen his best friends killed.

The question of who would play Sergeant Gold is even more interesting. Though Gold is not the book's point-of-view character, early readers have responded to her with an enthusiasm I honestly did not anticipate. Some of the real-life military women with whom I have served inspired that character. Though Parson outranks Gold, she becomes the functional leader on the ground in Afghanistan. She speaks fluent Pashto; she knows Afghan cultures. She's an expert in the human terrain she and Parson must navigate. In addition, she possesses a wisdom and perspective that Parson lacks. Her knowledge helps keep him sane, while his outdoor skills help keep her alive.

Though Gold is a soldier, a senior noncommissioned officer, at her core she is a scholar. Think of the smartest girl in the class, then give her a rifle and the know-how to use it, and that's Sergeant Gold. She doesn't talk a lot, but when she does you want to listen. When she doesn't, you wonder what she's thinking. She would be a great role for an actress who can project quiet strength. Imagine the intensity of Angelina Jolie, the heart of Evangeline Lilly, and the cerebral appeal of Jodie Foster.

Finally, the mountains themselves are practically a character in The Mullah's Storm. Since I don't recommend shooting a film in the Hindu Kush just now, the Rockies or the Alps would make a good substitute. The sweep and grandeur of the terrain inform the novel's tension, and a cinematographer could capitalize on the forbidding beauty of the locale as an engine of the story.

For some visuals relevant to The Mullah's Storm, please take a look at a video from Putnam. The video includes stills of the Hindu Kush that I took from the flight deck of a C-130 on missions in Afghanistan.

Read an excerpt from The Mullah's Storm, and learn more about the book and author at Thomas W. Young's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Gerald Elias' "Danse Macabre"

A graduate of Yale, Gerald Elias has been a Boston Symphony violinist, Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony since 1988, Adjunct Professor of Music at the University of Utah, first violinist of the Abramyan String Quartet, and Music Director of the Vivaldi Candlelight concert series.

Here he shares his preference for casting the lead in adaptations of his novels, Devil's Trill and the recently released Danse Macabre:

Move over, De Niro and Pacino. For Daniel Jacobus in Devil's Trill and Danse Macabre I want Alan Arkin, in my mind one of America's greatest actors ever, who can play any kind of role convincingly. That's why I want him for Jacobus, flinty and sarcastic on the outside, heart of gold on the inside, afflicted with blindness and old age, a profound artist yet coarse and neglectful in his worldly tastes. Think of Arkin's portrayal of a deaf mute in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter, one of the most poignant roles ever in cinema, and then in Little Miss Sunshine, and Wait Until Dark, and The Russians Are Coming, and Catch 22. Without a doubt, he's the man!

Learn more about the book and author at Gerald Elias' website.

The Page 69 Test: Devil's Trill.

The Page 69 Test: Danse Macabre.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Matt Hilton's "Judgment and Wrath"

Matt Hilton is the Cumbrian author of the Joe Hunter thriller series, including Dead Men’s Dust, Judgement and Wrath, Slash and Burn, and Cut and Run, with further books in the series coming soon. He is a high ranking martial artist and has been a police officer and private security specialist, all of which lend an authenticity to the action scenes in his books.

Here he shares some ideas for casting a big screen adaptation of Judgment and Wrath:

OK, I admit to playing the ‘what if they made my book into a movie’ game and have mulled this over with some of my readers on occasion. It’s surprising who comes to mind, and there seems to be a mix of opinions.

Judgment and Wrath is an action thriller, with Joe Hunter protecting a young couple after they are targeted by a demented contract killer who believes himself to be the fallen angel ‘Dantalion’. Here are my choices for casting Judgment and Wrath, the second in the Joe Hunter thriller series, as well as some others I’ve had suggested to me by my readers.

Joe Hunter: Max Martini (The Unit) has the looks and physical prowess, as well as the moody depths to play Hunter. Sean Bean (The Hitcher), Dominic West (The Wire), Gerard Butler (Law Abiding Citizen), Clive Owen (King Arthur), Daniel Craig (James Bond).

Dantalion: Jake Busey (Identity) or Luke Goss (Blade 2/ Hellboy 2: The Golden Army)

Jared ‘Rink’ Rington: Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson (Walking Tall/ WWE wrestler)

Harvey Lucas: Djimon Hounsou (Blood Diamond)

Marianne Dean: Anna Paquin (True Blood)

Bradley Jorgenson: Ryan Reynolds (The Amityville Horror)

Walter Hayes Conrad: Alec Baldwin (Mercury Rising) or Val Kilmer (Batman Forever/XIII)

Read more about Judgment and Wrath, and visit Matt Hilton's website and blog.

Writers Read: Matt Hilton.

The Page 69 Test: Judgment and Wrath.

--Marshal Zeringue

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Meredith Cole's Lydia McKenzie novels

Meredith Cole started her career as a screenwriter and filmmaker. She was the winner of the St. Martin’s Press/Malice Domestic competition. Posed for Murder (2009) was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best First Mystery Novel. Dead in the Water (2010) continues the adventures of photographer Lydia McKenzie in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

Here she shares her casting ideas for a cinematic adaptation of the Lydia McKenzie novels:

Since I started my career as a filmmaker and screenwriter, people often ask me when my books will be made into films or a television show. It seems natural to other people that I would imagine my stories as both novels and films from the very beginning. But I don’t. When I set out to write something new, I choose at some point whether a story is destined for the screen or for the pages of a book. And then I write it (or direct it). And then I’m done.

I wouldn’t say “no” if someone bought up the film rights and gave Lydia a new life in a different medium. There are probably things I would find painful (they might exaggerate her vintage clothes or goofiness), and others I would find enlightening (I wrote that?). But it would be an interesting experience nonetheless.

When someone first asked me who I saw playing Lydia, one actress popped into my head: Maggie Gyllenhaal. I think she’s a great actress. The first film I saw her in, Secretary, I couldn’t stop watching her. She is a beautiful woman, but very distinctive. She wears every emotion on her face and in her eyes. She has the quirkiness to play Lydia. And, even better, she lives in Brooklyn these days.

The rest of the cast? The main returning players are her bosses, the D’Angelo brothers and their bigger than life mother. If you’re going to dream, dream big: Olympia Dukakis as Mama D’Angelo, James Gandolfini as Frankie D’Angelo, and Andreas Katsulas (the one-armed man in The Fugitive) for Leo. And for Detective Daniel Romero? That’s tough. He has to be handsome and have a lot of charisma. Someone like Javier Bardem would fit the part exactly.

But really one of the most important characters in my book isn’t an actor. It’s the streets themselves. I would definitely object if they decided to move the film to somewhere in Canada. First, there are so many talented film professionals living in the New York and in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But second, the film wouldn’t feel authentic without the industrial parks, the quirky cafes, the East River, and Manhattan peeking over the top of the buildings.

Learn more about the books and author at Meredith Cole's website.

The Page 69 Test: Posed for Murder.

--Marshal Zeringue

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