Maryanne O'Hara's "Cascade"

A graduate of Emerson College's MFA program, Maryanne O'Hara was a longtime associate editor at Ploughshares magazine. Her short stories have been published in Five Points, The North American Review, The Crescent Review, and Redbook, as well as the literary anthologies MicroFiction, Brevity & Echo, The Art of Friction, and Flash Fiction: Youth.

Here she shares some suggestions for the above-the-line talent for an adaptation of her debut novel, Cascade:

I don't usually imagine actors when I’m creating characters but at one point, watching Jake Gyllenhaal during Brokeback Mountain, I thought, “Oh, Jacob, there you are.” At around the same time, my daughter mentioned that she saw Maggie Gyllenhaal as Dez, funny enough.

I didn’t personally picture anyone as Dez until I saw the latest production of Jane Eyre, with Mia Wasikowska inhabiting the role of Jane. Later, I stumbled upon a lovely photo of Mia in period makeup, with her hair set in 1920s waves, and I thought, yes, she could be Dez: placid-looking on the outside, but so much going on within.

Anthony Minghella would have been my idea of an ideal director. I loved his subtle, gorgeous artistry. Although, maybe a movie version of Cascade would be better off not being strictly period; maybe it would benefit from the inventiveness of someone like Sofia Coppola. I did a playlist for Cascade for David Gutowski’s music and literature blog, Largehearted Boy. His Book Notes feature asks authors to list a series of songs that relate, in any way the author likes, to their recent book. The Cascade playlist runs the gamut from Billy Strayhorn to Pink Floyd. Fun stuff.

Visit Maryanne O'Hara's website and Facebook page, and view the Cascade trailer.

The Page 69 Test: Cascade.

Writers Read: Maryanne O'Hara.

--Marshal Zeringue