Renée Rosen's "What the Lady Wants"

As clichéd as it sounds, Renée Rosen is a former advertising copywriter who always had a novel in her desk drawer. When she saw the chance to make the leap from writing ad copy to fiction, she jumped at it. A confirmed history and book nerd, the author loves all things old, all things Chicago and all things written.

Here Rosen dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, What the Lady Wants: A Novel of Marshall Field and the Gilded Age:

What the Lady Wants is a novel about a lover’s quadrangle between the Chicago retail tycoon, Marshall Field, his wife, Nannie, his mistress Delia and her husband Arthur Caton.

Given that the story spans more than 30 years, starting with the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and continuing through the death of the Merchant Prince in 1906, we have to take the aging process into account as well as the fact that Field was 20 years older than Delia. So given all that, this is a smattering of who I could see bring these real characters back to life:

Marshall Field: Donald Sutherland, Clint Eastwood, Sam Waterston or Tom Hanks. Picture them with white hair and bushy mustache.

Delia Spencer Caton: Keira Knightley, Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet or Cate Blanchett. With the exception of Anne Hathaway, these actresses would all have to go brunette for the role.

Arthur Caton: Ryan Gosling, Matt Damon or Bradley Cooper. That’s all I will say about that role—no spoilers here.

Nannie Field: Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon or Meryl Streep. Nannie was wicked so I’m thinking any one of these ladies could pull that off.

Visit Renée Rosen's website, blog, and Facebook page.

Writers Read: Renée Rosen.

The Page 69 Test: What the Lady Wants.

--Marshal Zeringue