Stephan Talty's "Black Irish"

In Black Irish, Stephan Talty's debut thriller, "a brilliant homicide detective returns home, where she confronts a city’s dark demons and her own past while pursuing a brutal serial killer on a vengeful rampage. Absalom 'Abbie' Kearney grew up an outsider in her own hometown. Even being the adopted daughter of a revered cop couldn’t keep Abbie’s troubled past from making her a misfit in the working-class Irish American enclave of South Buffalo. And now, despite a Harvard degree and a police detective’s badge, she still struggles to earn the respect and trust of those she’s sworn to protect. But all that may change, once the killing starts."

Here Talty dreamcasts an adaptation of Black Irish:

Casting a film of Black Irish would actually be strange for me. I don't see a face when I picture Abbie, I only think of a mood. Restlessness, pugnacity, and a desire for something that's always out of reach. That's how I think of Abbie, as always being in this permanent state of searching and getting desperate when she doesn't find what it is she wants. I would imagine that's a fairly common description of people who never knew their own parents. Abbie is an orphan and an exile and that's what drives her.

I think Jennifer Lawrence would be super. There's one scene in Silver Linings Playbook where she's standing behind a door listening to Bradley Cooper talk about her, and the range of different kinds of pain and hope that flit across her face - well, that would be perfect for Abbie.

Her father? I wish I could say Morgan Freeman, because he's so damn good that he can tell a thousand-year-old story with his eyes alone, and he hasn't had a decent part in ages. But the actor has to be white, for obvious reasons, so I'd go with the British actor Jim Broadbent. I'd like to see him play a tough guy who's got secrets.

The killer couldn't be a pretty boy. I'd love for it to be an unknown, because the character has been in darkness, literally lived in darkness and solitude, his whole life. An unknown, a guy from my old neighborhood, who plays the role and is never seen again would be ideal. A real-life Boo Radley. And I know some guys back there who need the work.

Learn more about the book and author at Stephan Talty's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

--Marshal Zeringue

Robin Burcell's "The Black List"

Robin Burcell, an FBI-trained forensic artist, has worked in law enforcement for over two decades as a police officer, detective and hostage negotiator. The Black List is the latest installment in her series featuring Special Agent Sydney Fitzpatrick.

Here Burcell dreamcasts an adaptation of The Black List:

An interesting notion... When I start a novel, I don’t always give much thought about the men and women I’d cast, but the longer I’m working on a piece, the more I tend to have specific images in my head without even realizing it. In talking to readers, I find they have similar experiences with the characters as they delve into a book. But their images of actors they see in the roles don’t always match mine. They’ll tell me who they see as a certain character, and I nod and smile, telling them that’s a great idea, when the truth is that it’s not who I envisioned at all. Of course, once someone puts me on the spot, asking me whom I would cast, I discover it’s not that easy to turn my mind’s eye into something more concrete. (Anyone know a good sketch artist?)

The worst part of casting for me is that I really don’t retain names. (Really! Even names of people I’ve known for years. It’s a running joke at my house. I know faces, but that’s it.) Naturally I turned to the internet and started looking at photos of leading actors, whether TV or the big screen. It felt a bit like looking at mug shots for a police lineup. “Ma’am, is this who you saw?” Well… no. He’s too young, tall, thin-faced, eyes too close together, dark, light… and the list of faults goes on.

But occasionally I’ll run across a photo of someone and think, yes… that could be him. Or her. Of course I’d have to see them in action, hear them talk to know for sure. But based on photos alone, here’s who passed my mug shot test.

Special Agent Zachary Griffin is one of those rather quiet guys with a past that not everyone knows. He doesn’t share his feelings openly, but one thing I do know about him is that you don’t want to be on his bad side. Christian Bale, now that he’s aged up a bit, lost some of that prettiness, would make a standup Griffin.

Special Agent James “Tex” Dalton can deliver one liners with the best of them. Timothy Olyphant of Justified looks great in a cowboy hat and boots, which is what Tex prefers to wear. Of course, I’m torn. I think Olyphant would also make a great Griffin…

Special Agent Sydney Fitzpatrick: I have no idea… Jennifer Lawrence, who recently won an Oscar for Best Actress is a bit too young, but in a few years I could see her in the role. But I also like Alison Brie. Sydney isn’t one of those frou-frou pretty girls. She’s been around the block and knows how to take care of herself. And do not tell her she can’t do something. To her, that’s like a direct challenge.

Of course, ask me again in a month who I’d cast, and I’ll have changed my mind completely!

Learn more about the book and author at Robin Burcell's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Patricia Dunn's "Rebels by Accident"

Patricia Dunn was the managing editor of Muslimwakeup.com, America’s most popular Muslim online magazine from 2003-2008. She has an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College where she also teaches.

Here Dunn dreamcasts an adaptation of her young adult novel, Rebels by Accident:

Before the book was finished, I could imagine it on screen.

I gave a lot of thought to who would play the two main characters in by book. I think Summer Bishil would be wonderful as Mariam. She was in the movie Towelhead, about an Arab American girl who is dealing with, well, let’s just say, a lot.

Of course, she was the same age as my character is, when she did the movie in 2007 and now may be too old for the part, but I think she’s wonderful.

If I was given free rein, I would use the actress who plays Mariam in the book trailer. The first time I saw her was outside my publisher’s office. I looked at her and thought, “I know that girl.” I couldn’t figure out from where. By the time I got to my car, it hit me. “That’s Mariam.” She looked exactly like I had always pictured Mariam. I ran back to my publisher’s office and introduced myself and found out that was meeting my publisher to talk about the trailer. My publisher asked a friend of hers from the Sarah Lawrence College’s theater program if he had someone he thought would be good to do the trailer, and he sent over Arielle Strauss. She not only has the right look, but she is an amazing actress. She totally embodies Mariam’s sprit.

Jennette McCurdy, from iCarly, would be the perfect Deanna. Her dry sense of humor and her take-no-bull attitude is precisely Deanna. And just like her character on iCarly always has her best friend’s back, Deanna always has Mariam’s back.

The director I would choose for this film is Ang Lee. He does an incredible job of taking the written word, and bringing it to life on the screen. He finds a way to be true to the book, yet make great movies. That is an art.

Learn more about Rebels by Accident at Patricia Dunn's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gareth Crocker's "Journey from Darkness"

Gareth Crocker, a former journalist, lives with his wife and two children in Johannesburg, South Africa. He wrote Finding Jack, his first novel, in the company of his three dogs, Jill, Rusty and Jack.

Here the author shares some suggestions for the talent to carry his latest novel, Journey from Darkness, to the big screen:

In Journey from Darkness, I would love to see either Leonardo DiCaprio or Edward Norton in the lead role.

In terms of the bad guys, my first choice would be the brilliant Christoph Waltz. His ability to broadcast a sort of unspoken menace is almost without parallel.

In terms of directors, Frank Darabont (director of The Shawshank Redemption) would be my first choice.

Learn more about the book and author at Gareth Crocker's website and blog.

The Page 69 Test: Finding Jack.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Gareth Crocker & Jill, Hannah, Rusty and Jack.

The Page 69 Test: Journey from Darkness.

Writers Read: Gareth Crocker.

--Marshal Zeringue

Phillip F. Schewe’s "Maverick Genius"

Phillip F. Schewe works at the Joint Quantum Institute, located at the University of Maryland. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Scientific American, The Humanist, American Scientist, Physics Today, and Physical Review Letters. He is also a playwright. His previous book, The Grid, a history of how society uses and loses electricity, was named by NPR as one of the science books of the year for 2007.

Schewe’s present book, Maverick Genius, tells the story of the life of Freeman Dyson, a protean scientist-essayist who helped to reinvent quantum science, to design a best-selling nuclear reactor model, to design a nuclear-powered rocket ship used by Stanley Kubrick (at least at first) as the model for the spaceship in 2001, to launch the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (“Dyson Spheres”), to craft the limited nuclear testban treaty of 1963, to keep tactical nuclear weapons out of Vietnam, to invent adaptive optics (now used on most large optical telescopes), to prove the chemical stability of matter, and to introduce field theory into condensed matter physics. Dyson has been a frequent writer for The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. He won the million dollar Templeton Prize for writing on religion and science.

Here Schewe dreamcasts an adaptation of Maverick Genius:

Most readers will form their own cinematic equivalent of a book--imaginatively casting actors and filming scenes in their mind’s eyes. Left to me, the casting for this book would look like this: For the boy Dyson the young Daniel Radcliffe is natural--worried, brave, searching. For the Dyson as a young-man, I’d go with a somewhat smaller version of Benedict Cumberbatch--penetrating gaze, Sherlock Holmes’ lightning calculation ability. For the elderly Dyson, Ian McKellen--wry, visionary as wise as Gandalf but without the beard.

The women in Dyson’s life include his aristocratic, prim mother--played here by Maggie Smith; his first wife, Verena Huber, is beautiful, brilliant, and intense--who else but Claire Danes (forty years ago it would have been Ava Gardner or Katherine Hepburn); and his second wife, Imme Jung, supportive, wholesome--Laura Linney or Tina Fey.

Dyson’s scientist colleagues are often famous in their own right, and make repeated appearances in the story of Dyson’s life. These include Robert Oppenheimer (Patrick Stewart, with his bony face and pithy Capt. Picard comments); Edward Teller (already perfectly played once by actor David Suchet); Richard Feynman (George Clooney who possesses the needed puckish humor and generous gestures); and Ted Taylor, with whom Dyson designed the nuclear rocketship and whom Dyson thought of as the most moral great man he’d ever met (Philip Seymour Hoffman).

Finally, I specify cameo appearances by some of the historical characters who--with their largeness of vision--have inspired and haunted Dyson’s career and lent an ethereal aspect to the book/movie. H.G. Wells (Jeremy Irons), for example, prompted Dyson’s interest in novels; the science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon (John Malkovich) helped Dyson think about the largeness of the universe and the future of the human race; philosopher William James (Sean Connery) taught Dyson to view other people’s views with empathy; and biologist/essayist J.B.S. Haldane (Christopher Hitchens), who was a model for Dyson’s effort to relate scientific and technological progress with ethical considerations.

Learn more about Maverick Genius at the publisher's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ronlyn Domingue's "The Mapmaker's War"

Ronlyn Domingue is the author of the newly released The Mapmaker’s War. Its sequel, The Chronicle of Secret Riven, is forthcoming in 2014. Her critically acclaimed debut novel, The Mercy of Thin Air, was published in ten languages. Her writing has appeared in The Beautiful Anthology (TNB Books), New England Review, The Independent (UK), and Shambhala Sun, as well as on mindful.org and The Nervous Breakdown. Born and raised in the Deep South, she lives there still with her partner, Todd Bourque, and their cats.

Here Domingue shares some suggestions for casting a big screen adaptation of her second book, The Mapmaker’s War:

At no point in the writing did I seriously think about a film adaptation for The Mapmaker’s War. This seems ridiculous considering how popular epic tales are right now, such as Game of Thrones. My book fits in that category because it takes place in an ancient time in a faraway land—think the Dark Ages. It’s about an exiled mapmaker who must come to terms with the home and children she was forced to leave behind.

Considering the story’s arc follows Aoife (pronounced ee-fah) from childhood to old age—maiden, mother, crone—this would be a difficult book to make into a movie. However, I did manage to gather a list of actors with some help from friends.

Aoife—The Mapmaker’s War is written in the spirit of old legends, but Aoife’s story isn't told by historians or bards. This tale is her autobiography. She’s intelligent, serious, and resilient. A person who knows her own will. Jennifer Lawrence of The Hunger Games fame could pull off a younger Aoife, and Nicole Kidman, who plays smart, intense women so well, would be a good fit for the older Aoife.

Wyl—He’s the prince Aoife has known since she was a girl, whom she describes as “more interested in pleasure than power” and “beautiful and virile.” Aoife and Wyl don’t escape their attraction to one another or the consequences of it. He’s a good-natured, decent fellow with a sensitive side. I’d pick Ryan Gosling for this role, although he’d have to dye his hair.

Raef—This is Wyl’s younger brother who likes to wield influence at any opportunity. He may not be truly evil, but he is malicious. The actor who portrays him must be able to manage a certain darkness. I’m torn between Jonathan Rhys Meyers, wonderfully strange in Gormenghast, and Rob James-Collier, the mercurial Thomas Barrow on Downton Abbey.

Leit (pronounced lite)—After Aoife is exiled, she finds refuge among the very people her kingdom provoked into war. In this community, she meets a great warrior who was scarred physically and emotionally in that war. Leit is a noble, wise man, profoundly good at his core. I struggled to cast this part until I saw Rufus Sewell in The Pillars of the Earth mini-series. Yes, him—please.

Learn more about the book and author at Ronlyn Domingue's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Mapmaker's War.

Writers Read: Ronlyn Domingue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Matthew Goodman’s "Eighty Days"

Matthew Goodman's nonfiction books include The Sun and the Moon: The Remarkable True Account of Hoaxers, Showmen, Dueling Journalists, and Lunar Man-Bats in Nineteenth-Century New York and Jewish Food: The World at Table. The recipient of two MacDowell fellowships and one Yaddo fellowship, he has taught creative writing at numerous universities and workshops. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife and children.

Here Goodman dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, Eighty Days: Nellie Bly and Elizabeth Bisland's History-Making Race Around the World:

Eighty Days tells the true story of two young female journalists who in the year 1889 set out from New York – one heading east, the other heading west – each of them determined to break the around-the-world mark of eighty days set by the fictional character Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s popular novel of the time.

Right from the very beginning I recognized that this was a highly cinematic tale, and pretty much everyone I tell about it immediately asks if I’ve yet sold the movie rights. (I haven’t!) The story has all the makings of a great film. The lead characters are two strong and complex young women, very different from each other but each one independent and attractive in her own way. It’s got exotic locations – such as, for instance, the crowded streets of Hong Kong and Canton, a moonlit Suez Canal, Jules Verne’s walled French estate – and physical danger, including a storm-tossed Atlantic Ocean crossing, a night-time ski expedition across Sierra Nevada mountains blockaded by snow, and a railroad train careening wildly through the Italian Alps. And of course, it’s got the thrill of the race itself, which is neck-and-neck right up to the very end.

One of the two central characters is Nellie Bly, the legendary undercover reporter of New York’s World newspaper. New York had never seen a female reporter quite like Nellie Bly, someone so audacious, so willing to risk personal safety in pursuit of a story. (In her first exposé Bly went undercover, feigning insanity so that she might report first-hand on the mistreatment of the female patients of the Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum.) Bly was scrappy, courageous, ambitious, tough-talking, a regular patron of O’Rourke’s saloon on the Bowery. She came from the coal country of western Pennsylvania; she was attractive but not in a glamorous way; and she was twenty-five years old when she set out around the world, though she claimed to be younger. I could easily see Nellie Bly being played by one of today’s most talented young actresses, Jennifer Lawrence.

Elizabeth Bisland, on the other hand, had grown up on a Louisiana sugar-cane plantation ruined by the Civil War. With only fifty dollars in her purse she moved to New York, where she contributed poetry and essays to a variety of magazines; she was tall, erudite, genteel, soft-spoken, and was commonly referred to as “the most beautiful woman in New York journalism.” (Rudyard Kipling was among her many male admirers.) At the time of the race Bisland was twenty-eight years old. Assuming that she could handle a soft Southern accent – and I have every confidence that she could – Keira Knightley would make a perfect Elizabeth Bisland.

To play the part of Nellie Bly’s employer, World publisher Joseph Pulitzer – thin, cerebral, cultured, bedeviled by a nervous disorder that made all sounds physically painful – who better than my Brooklyn neighbor John Turturro?

And as for Elizabeth Bisland’s employer, Cosmopolitan publisher John Brisben Walker – middle-aged but physically vigorous, with a barrel chest and a handlebar mustache, with a genius for making money and finding free publicity – I think that one of my very favorite actors, Kevin Kline, would have a delightful time with that role.

Learn more about the book and author at Matthew Goodman's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kim Boykin's "The Wisdom of Hair"

Kim Boykin was born in Augusta, Georgia, but raised in South Carolina in a home with two girly sisters and great parents. Today, she's an empty nester of two kids with a husband, three dogs, and 126 rose bushes. She write stories about strong southern women because that’s what she knows.

Here Boykin dreamcats an adaptation of her new novel, The Wisdom of Hair:

Everybody dreams of having their book made into a movie, operative word made because most books that are bought never make it to the silver screen. Emma Stone would make a great Zora, she’s young and beautiful and is the best at playing smart but vulnerable. The yummy dark brooding Winston Sawyer would be played by Bradley Cooper only he’d have to grow his hair out.

Zora’s BFF Sara Jane Farquhar is a hard role to cast, which is kind of sad. Even my editor didn’t buy that a woman like Sara Jan could be drop dead gorgeous but 80 or 90 pounds overweight. My editor is a size two and suggested twenty or thirty pounds overweight was enough. But Sara Jane Farquhar is a big woman with a big personality, I told Leis to think of her as a amazingly beautiful Melissa McCarthy. So Sara Jane ended up 50-60 pounds overweight and is still a big personality.

Mrs. Cathcart, the dean of the Davenport School of Beauty would be played by Meryl Streep because she gets all the really good roles for women of a certain age. Zora’s mother would be played by Charlize Theron, Mama’s a little twisted and Charlize has an Oscar to prove she plays twisted well.

Learn more about the book and author at Kim Boykin's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Wisdom of Hair.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dana Sachs's "The Secret of the Nightingale Palace"

Dana Sachs is the author of the novel If You Lived Here and two books of nonfiction, The House on Dream Street: Memoir of an American Woman in Vietnam and The Life We Were Given: Operation Babylift, International Adoption, and the Children of War in Vietnam.

Here she shares some insights for adapting her new novel, The Secret of the Nightingale Palace, for the big screen:

Asking a writer to “cast” their novel as a movie is a little bit like taking a hungry person to a fabulous restaurant and inviting them to eat whatever they want. Even if it’s a fantasy, it’s a temptation that I imagine most of us will want to indulge. So, here goes.

The Secret of the Nightingale Palace tells the story of 85-year-old Goldie Rosenthal and her 35-year-old newly widowed granddaughter, Anna, as they drive from New York to San Francisco to return a collection of Japanese art to its original owner. The novel also follows Goldie back in time to San Francsico during World War II, when she was a young woman trying to make it on nothing but ambition and a terrific sense of style. For the movie, I’m going to cast four parts: Goldie (young Goldie and elderly Goldie), Anna, and the original owner of the art collection, a San Francisco antique dealer named Henry Nakamura.

For the older Goldie, I’ll cast Maggie Smith, who can do imperious better than anyone, but can also show a softer side (and is a good enough actress, I believe, to pull off an American Southern accent). For Goldie as a younger woman, I’ll pick Reese Witherspoon, because she can mix longing, drive, and wit with an edge of ruthlessness, while always looking fresh and pretty (she’d need to become a brunette, however). I’m giving the part of Anna to Natalie Portman, because I like the peculiar combination of loss and resilience in Portman’s eyes, plus she has a hint of the imperious as well, which would connect her to Goldie (and Maggie Smith). Finally, for Henry, I’ll hire the great Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune. I know that you imagine him with his hair in a bun because of all his Samurai movies, but check out these photos of him in a suit. Debonair and gorgeous.

In writing the character of Goldie, I was inspired by my 100-year-old Grandmother, Rose—I say “inspired” because Goldie has my grandmother’s style and drive, but The Secret of the Nightingale Palace does not tell the story of Rose’s life. Because there’s already such an important family connection here, I’ll ask my sister and brother, Lynne Sachs and Ira Sachs, to co-direct. Lynne is a documentary and experimental filmmaker whose latest work, Your Day is My Night, delves into the lives of Chinese immigrants in America. Ira’s most recent film, the narrative feature Keep The Lights On, tells the story of the love affair of two gay men in New York City. The family connection is only one reason why they should direct this movie. We also share interests in the themes of cultural change, love, loss, and the fear that makes us all keep secrets. Also, nobody will know better how to put Goldie up on screen and, because they’re family, I can force them to introduce me to Maggie Smith.

Learn more about the book and author at Dana Sachs's website, blog, and Facebook page.

The Page 69 Test: The Secret of the Nightingale Palace.

--Marshal Zeringue

Bruce Macbain's "The Bull Slayer"

Bruce Macbain holds degrees in classical studies and ancient history, with a specialty in Greece and Rome. Upon retirement a few years ago, he decided to give up writing scholarly monographs which almost no one read, and turn to the more congenial realm of fiction. His debut mystery, Roman Games, set in first century AD Rome, was published by Poisoned Pen Press in 2010. His second novel, The Bull Slayer, comes out this month. Macbain is also a book reviewer for the Historical Novels Review.

Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of The Bull Slayer:

What is it about the Romans that makes us imagine them speaking with British accents? Presumably, all those fine British actors who have played them over the years in films and on television. So it will come as no surprise that I have cast Derek Jacobi in the leading role in my fantasy film of The Bull Slayer. My sleuth is a historical character, Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Younger), who was a Roman senator, a provincial governor, and a compulsive letter writer. His hundreds of letters illuminate the world he lived in as well as his own personality—tolerant and compassionate, yet at the same time rather vain and fussy, and often perplexed. The Derek Jacobi of I, Claudius and Brother Cadfael would get him exactly right.

In my latest novel, in which Governor Pliny tracks down the murderer of an unpopular tax official, he is assisted by his adjutant, Suetonius. Here I have cast Jude Law (as he looks today, thinning hair and all) to play the cool, urbane, sardonic biographer of The Twelve Caesars.

Continuing with the Brits, I like Christopher Lee (as he looked circa 1966 in Rasputin, The Mad Monk) for the role of Pancrates, a cultist and faith-healer who knows everyone’s secrets and sells them for a price. And, in the role of Diocles, an orator and power broker, whom I describe as a small man with a deep voice and silver hair, who struts like a cock with his chest thrust out—who else but John Thaw of Inspector Morse fame?

But, lest we have no Americans in the cast, I have chosen Winona Ryder (as she looked circa 1999 in Girl, Interrupted) in the key role of Pliny’s young wife, Calpurnia. She is half the age of her elderly husband and has accompanied him to his province, where she feels cut-off, lonely, inadequate--and ripe for seduction by a handsome Greek youth (played, incidentally, by a young Billy Zane). I think Ryder’s winsome vulnerability captures Calpurnia precisely.

What would we fiction writers ever do without Google Images and Wikipedia to jog our memories of faces long gone?

Learn more about the book and author at Bruce Macbain's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Bull Slayer.

--Marshal Zeringue