Tuesday, August 20, 2013

L. Tam Holland's "The Counterfeit Family Tree of Vee Crawford-Wong," the movie

Now showing at My Book, The Movie: The Counterfeit Family Tree of Vee Crawford-Wong by L. Tam Holland.

The entry begins:
This brings up the interesting question of what my protagonist Vee Crawford-Wong (who is half-Chinese, half-Caucasian) actually looks like. I’ve hinted that he feels more Asian than he looks; his best friend Madison calls him “confused-looking” and “cute in a kind of old-fashioned way.” He’s also sort of big and soft, and very self-critical – and since the story’s told from his perspective, our view of him is really shaped by this. A friend of mine, who’s a fantastic painter, is working on a self-portrait of Vee; he ultimately told me he’s doing something a bit Cubist – drawing all the physical descriptions that Vee mentions and criticizes, and putting them together in an exaggerated mish-mash. I thought this was a great choice, since Vee’s self-consciousness about how he looks is intrinsic to his questions about his ethnicity and identity.

None of this, of course, is helpful for movie-making. To some degree, I think my book would make a good cartoon/graphic novel. But I also think, in realistic movie form, the father-son relationship and the vitality of China could come through in moving ways. I don’t think it’s a cop-out answer to say the best person to play Vee might be an unknown. If you look around at Asian-American actors, they are still so typecast as action heroes (a la Jackie Chan) or sidekicks (a la John Cho). My closest bet would be someone like Ezra...[read on]
Learn more about the book and author at L. Tam Holland's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Counterfeit Family Tree of Vee Crawford-Wong.

My Book, The Movie: The Counterfeit Family Tree of Vee Crawford-Wong.

--Marshal Zeringue