Wednesday, May 16, 2007

"The Rhythm of the Road," the movie

At My Book, The Movie, Albyn Leah Hall shares some ideas about the casting for a film adaptation of her latest novel, The Rhythm of the Road.

The story is a "road novel and psychological thriller," according to the author:
The Rhythm of the Road is the story of Josephine, an English truck driver’s daughter, who spends her childhood in her father’s truck. Together with her Irish father, the sweetly depressive Bobby Pickering, Josephine lives out an ersatz version of the American dream, obsessively listening to country music while traveling the English motorways. Josephine and Bobby can’t believe their luck when Cosima Stewart, a beautiful country singer from Texas, hitches a lift with them. As Cosima’s career begins to rise, they become her biggest fans. This is harmless enough until Bobby, already a tormented and fragile soul, disappears on an overnight ferry to Dublin. Josephine, now a teenager and in denial about her father’s disappearance, manically pursues Cosima, conjuring a friendship that does not exist and even following her to California.
Read on to see who the author would have portraying her characters.

Among the praise for the novel:

"One of those rare literary novels-a fascinating story that keeps you gripped to the end, written in some of the finest prose I have read in a long time. It explores the themes of love, loss, grief, and eventual redemption with sparkling prose that is often funny and sometimes frighteningly chilling. A tender and compelling read!"
--Andrea Levy, author of the Orange Prize-winning novel, Small Island

"A stunning novel, a story of obsession and loss played out in the consciousness of a desperate and engaging young woman who was born on the move. Hall has powerful gifts of observation and sensitivity. She renders complex characters in sudden, deft strokes and unfolds with marvelous authority a vivid, funny, touching, and suspenseful world of wonders. I couldn't put this book down."
--Valerie Martin, author of the Orange Prize-winning novel Property, Italian Fever, and The Unfinished Novel and Other Stories

"I have not stopped thinking about Hall's beautiful and engrossing novel. Her chronicle of a young woman's descent into madness is so rich in compassion and so believable, it should be required reading."
--Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha

Read an excerpt from The Rhythm of the Road and learn more about Albyn Leah Hall's writing at her website.

My Book, The Movie: The Rhythm of the Road.

--Marshal Zeringue