{BOOKS} Previews Top 5
FROM PAGE TO SCREEN
Brian Donaldson picks five authors whose books have been adapted for cinema and the telly Joe Dunthorne
With his debut, Submarine, the Welsh poet and author captured the peculiar, rainy-day awkwardness of adolescence, and Richard Ayoade’s film, with Dunthorne’s assistance, did a fair old stab at bringing it further to life. 19 Aug, 10.15am, £10 (£8).
Val McDermid Taken from a line in TS Eliot’s ‘Four Quartets’, Wire in the Blood brought Fifer McDermid to national attention thanks to Robson Green and Hermione Norris and some of the most lurid serial killers ever brought to ITV viewers. Which is saying something. 18 Aug, 6.30pm, £10 (£8).
Michel Faber Viewed by some as one of contemporary literature’s most unfilmable authors, the Beeb did a fine old job with the recent adaptation of Faber’s The Crimson Petal and the White about the dark side of Victorian London featuring Romola Garai, Richard E Grant and Gillian Anderson. 18 Aug, 8.30pm, £7 (£5).
Alan Hollinghurst One of the quickest adaptation turnarounds in literary history, The Line of Beauty had barely had time to enjoy its status as the 2004 Booker winner when a BBC version arrived of this tale of a gay Oxford graduate in early to mid- 80s Thatcherite Britain. 20 Aug, 8pm, £10 (£8).
Alexander McCall Smith The gentle crime stories of Mma Ramotswe were shockingly transformed into a blood and guts- strewn horror thriller by David Cronenberg. Not really, the late Anthony Minghella was tasked with adapting The No 1 Ladies Detective Agency for the BBC and everyone thought it was all rather splendid. 19 Aug, 8pm; 20 Aug, 6.30pm, £10 (£8).
30 THE LIST 18–25 Aug 2011
L A V I T S E F
JULIE MYERSON Delving into the heart of darkness
‘Oh dear, I’m sorry!’ says Julie Myerson. She’s apologising for giving me nightmares with her latest novel, Then. ‘Well, I’m only half-sorry as I suppose I do want to have that effect.’ The London-based writer has never shirked from disconcerting subject matter: ‘I always write about the things that frighten me, and mostly that’s loss of the people you love.’ But even so, Then is particularly harrowing with its charting of a contemporary apocalypse, love and loss and the devastation of a mind and of the world. As Myerson readily admits, the novel arose from dark
times. ‘For a while after the furore over my book [The Lost Child, about her teenage son, for which she was widely lambasted] I sort of lost my writing confidence; my life confidence, actually. But another thing happened
which was quite creative: I found myself in such a low place that there was nothing left to lose, so I let rip and I wrote exactly what I wanted, without fear or moderation. It was amazing. When I got to the end, I took a step back and thought, “Fucking hell, what have I written?”’
As a reader, it’s hard to move on from the novel’s horrific images and scenarios. How did Myerson cope with the writing process? ‘I was lucky that I wrote a lot of it – especially the worst bits – while staying in our house in Suffolk,’ she recollects. ‘It was last summer, and outside it was hot, light, blue skies. I’d come out of all the novel’s ice and snow to have a walk, a little dazed, along the beach. One evening I went to a friend’s house and we had a “Spotify evening”, drinking wine and playing Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone in the warm garden til very late. It was a perfect antidote.’ (Nicola Meighan) ■ 21 Aug, noon, £10 (£8).
JO NESBØ Crafty Oslo crime scribe brings us his fiendish ’tec
There are many ways to cause a fatality, and crime writers are renowned for finding the most imaginative route to the grave possible. But Norwegian author Jo Nesbø has really outdone himself in his latest novel The Leopard. His serial killer’s instrument of choice is so gruesome, it’s hard to believe a human mind could dream it up.
Yet somehow, despite this, even readers who abhor violence (myself included) find themselves utterly enthralled by Nesbø’s writing. Of course it doesn’t hurt that his booze-soaked, broken-spirited detective Harry Hole is so fiendishly good at his job that seeing him unravel a murder is like watching Rolf Harris paint: ‘can you tell who it is yet?’ Well not usually, no, given that Nesbø is a master of the twist and turn, with The Leopard in particular reaching a supposed conclusion several times over before the true ending reveals itself.
Nesbø’s first Harry Hole novel to be translated into
English, The Redbreast tackled the unspoken problem of neo-Nazism in Oslo – something tragically brought to the fore in recent events. Whether Nesbø will share his opinion on life in his – and Hole’s – home city during his Edinburgh International Book Festival appearance remains to be seen. (Kelly Apter) ■ 24 Aug, 3pm, £10 (£8).