The entry begins:Annie Dillard said never to trust a novel that wanted to be a movie. “Novels with film contracts in mind have a faint but unmistakable, and ruinous, odor,” she observed in The Writing Life. I wish I’d never read that, not because she isn’t right, but because along with all the scoffing critics that already reside in my head, there is now also Annie Dillard and her Sniff Test. The first time a reader remarked that Above would make a great movie, I bit my bottom lip and tried not to glance Annie Dillard’s way. When others echoed the sentiment, I felt the need to defend myself to her: My intentions were honest. A book, I swear; not a movie!Learn more about the book and author at Isla Morley's website.
The version of Annie Dillard who sits in the corner of my mind on a straight back chair with her Pulitzer trophy on her lap is not at all pleased with this exercise. I shouldn’t be imagining people from the Silver Screen showing up for their parts, but how easy it is to see Jennifer Lawrence as Blythe Hallowell, the abducted teen who is held deep underground in an abandoned World War II missile silo, and Sam...[read on]
The Page 69 Test: Come Sunday.
Writers Read: Isla Morley.
The Page 69 Test: Above.
My Book, The Movie: Above.
--Marshal Zeringue
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