Ted Kosmatka's "Prophet of Bones"

Ted Kosmatka is the author of the novels The Games and the recently released Prophet of Bones. His short fiction has been nominated for both the Nebula Award and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and appeared in numerous Year's Best collections.

Here Kosmatka dreamcasts an adaptation of Prophet of Bones:

For this exercise I enlisted the help of my family, who have all read the book, and we came to tense agreement about who might play the various roles. Paul Carlsson, the main character, was the hardest, so I’ll get to him last. For Paul’s father, I can see Stellan Skarsgård, from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. For Paul’s mother, Zhang Ziyi from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. For James, “Herpetology, mate,” I can imagine Tony Curran playing that role well. For Margaret, I can picture Phoebe Tonkin filling the part.

The role of Joseph Martial Johansson was a tough one, and I can see it going in one of several different ways. Nick Nolte  would contribute the right amount of menace. Rutger Hauer could also play the part, I think, and add some important charisma to the role. Charles Dance from Game of Thrones could provide an aloof intellectualism to the character. Any of those three would be interesting, though for very different reasons.

For Gavin McMaster, we all agreed Jon Voight would be perfect. The baby-faced Ekman could be played by Travis Fimmel, of Ragnar the Viking fame (he does a great job of playing the part of charming-but-might-kill-you). Paul’s long lost girlfriend Lillivati could be played by Reshma Shetty, of the show Royal Pains.

And last but not least, I think Paul, like Martial, could be played in one of several different ways. British actor George Young could play a great Paul, I think, if he can pull off a good American accent. Actors Sam Tan and Daniel "Cloud" Campos might also nicely fit the part.

Learn more about the book and author at Ted Kosmatka's website.

Writers Read: Ted Kosmatka.

The Page 69 Test: The Games.

My Book, the Movie: The Games.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jessica Soffer's "Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots"

Jessica Soffer earned her MFA at Hunter College. Her work has appeared in Granta, the New York Times, and Vogue, among other publications. She teaches fiction at Connecticut College and lives in New York City.

Here Soffer dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, her debut, Tomorrow There Will Be Apricots.

In Apricots, I obsessed over characters’ particular, stray details, the weird ones, but I left out more overarching physical attributes. At least, I meant to. I believe in letting the reader fill in the blanks. Something fantastic happens when you’re reading and all of a sudden you realize that you’ve imagined Macbeth as the guy you see every morning at the coffee shop. That probably means that my version of Lorca (one of Apricots’ narrators) is not your Lorca. And my Victoria (another narrator) is not your Victoria. There might be mountains between us, which makes for tricky casting.

That said, I imagine Lorca as a breakthrough star. Remember Thirteen? How Evan Rachel Wood came out of nowhere and knocked our socks off? That idea—a face, a voice, a gesture that no one has seen before and has no expectations about—is what I’d hope for in a Lorca performance. I’d want to have no sense of how it could be done until it was done, and then boom. Spot on.

For Victoria, Lena Olin and Shohreh Aghdashloo come to mind, but they’d need to be made to look significantly older, and less glam. Their strength is what is attractive to me, and their takes on English, on ego, on vanity, on regret. I feel they could do all those things right. Victoria-ized. And I imagine they know what they’re doing in the kitchen, which would help.

There’s something Ron Rifkin-y about Joseph, but without the chic glasses. He’s endearing first and foremost. That’s the thing.

I’d love for Sofia Coppola to direct—of course of course of course—because she’s a master of sweetness undercut by torment. Melancholy gone awry. Endearment with a side of angst. Think: The Virgin Suicides. I love how she hits the off notes and that she hits them and they make the weirdest sound. No one else does that quite like her.

Her work (even Lost in Translation) feels more Los Angeles than Apricots, which is set in New York City and about it too, in a way. I think that has something to do with the measured charm of her characters. How they’re wringing their hands beneath the table as they’re carrying on with perfectly nice conversation. But you don’t see beneath the table until late in the game. In Apricots, there’s more wringing in plain sight, and early on. In New York City, everyone’s crying on the street. In Los Angeles, people cry in their cars. That’s the difference.

But I’d pack up the pages and move Apricots to Los Angeles in a second for Sofia. I’d move to Los Angeles in a second for Sofia. I’d move to the end of the earth, if she asked.

Learn more about the book and author at Jessica Soffer's website.

Writers Read: Jessica Soffer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stefan Bachmann's "The Peculiar"

Stefan Bachmann is a writer and musician. He was born in Colorado and now lives with his family in Zurich, Switzerland, where he attends the Zurich Conservatory. He began writing his acclaimed novel The Peculiar in 2010, when he was sixteen years old.

Here Bachmann shares some ideas for adapting The Peculiar for the big screen:

I remember the very first time I spoke to my editor on the phone, before The Peculiar had even sold, and she and my agent were like, "Now, Johnny Depp will play Mr. Jelliby, and Tim Burton will direct, and Danny Elfman will write the music, and Michael Bay will produce, and it will be great."

And I was like, "Uhhh."

Shockingly, neither Johnny Depp or Tim Burton probably even knows this book exists, but whatever. If they were to make the movie, I would be happy. I love Tim Burton's Corpse Bride, the updated Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which most people seem to hate (Whyyy, people, it's so much fun... ), and the Gothic visuals in Sleepy Hollow. Burton and Deep are kind of the cliché pairing for vaguely creepy Victorian children's stories, but I think they would be great for this one. Johnny Depp doesn't really look at all the way I imagine Mr. Jelliby. It's Johnny Depp, though, so that's ok.

If for some unconscionable reason they didn't want to do it, Joe Wright would be awesome, too. I like basically all of his movies. They have a really great visual flair.

Bartholomew, the tragic half-faery, half-human who sets off on an adventure to solve the murders of other half-bloods (who are found floating in the rivers covered in red markings) could be played by Asa Butterfield. He might be a bit old now, but he was good in Martin Scorsese's Hugo.

The Lady in Plum, a beautiful villainess with a dark past and a sad secret, really only has about three sentences of dialogue in the entire book, so she could be played by anyone who is very tall.

As for John Wednesday Lickerish, the faery politician and main antagonist, I have no idea who would play him. He would need to be so plastered up with so much makeup and prosthetics and pointy ears, and a skull cap so that he looks bald, that whoever played him would be unrecognizable anyway. As long as his voice is windy and dark, I don't even care. He could be CGI.

And since I'm a music student and a little bit obsessed with these things, the score should be written by Dario Marianelli of Atonement / Brothers Grimm / Anna Karenina fame. Or Danny Elfman. Danny Elfman would be cool, too.

Learn more about the book and author at Stefan Bachmann's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Katia Lief's "The Money Kill"

Born in France to American parents, Katia Lief moved to the United States as a baby and was raised in Massachusetts and New York. She teaches fiction writing as a part-time faculty member at the New School in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn.

Lief's Karin Schaeffer novels include You Are Next, Next Time You See Me, Vanishing Girls, and the recently released The Money Kill.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of her latest novel:

The Money Kill is the fourth novel in a series, and when I previously (pretended to) cast the first two books in 2010, I chose Hilary Swank, Matt Damon and Jamie Foxx to play the lead roles. I still think they'd be terrific, but in the spirit of reinvention, I'm going to offer some alternatives for the series' latest installment.

Since great long-form television has lately proven its ability to rival the movies for high-end cinematic entertainment, and since I recently recovered from an addiction to Breaking Bad, I propose the brilliant Bryan Cranston to play my detective Mac MacLeary. If anyone can make sympathetic a man who leaves his wife for the love of another woman and still manages to be likeable and heroic, it's Cranston, who turned mild-mannered cancer-ridden Walter White into one of the most enigmatic, believable and compelling characters in all of television history.

While we're culling excellent actors from the ranks of illustrious good-parent-goes-bad drug-dealing television shows, let's cast Mary-Louise Parker from Weeds as Karin Schaeffer, my imperfect kickass investigator who teams with Mac MacLeary to do what it takes to fight crime. I have no doubt that Parker's range as an actor would capture the subtlety, intelligence, vulnerability and bravery that defines Karin Schaeffer.

In The Money Kill, Bryan Cranston and Mary-Louise Parker would get the chance to redeem their television personas by working for the right side of the law, and we would get to watch a mighty acting duo show us how it's done.

As for Detective Billy Staples, Karin and Mac's best friend and sometime partner, let's raid television's Criminal Minds to reclaim the mega-talented Forest Whitaker for the big screen. Though to be fair, I'm stretching the television theme a bit since Whitaker is an established Academy Award winning movie star. (Hey, how did he end up on TV?)

Learn more about the book and author at Katia Lief's website.

Writers Read: Katia Lief (November 2010).

The Page 69 Test: Next Time You See Me.

My Book, The Movie: Next Time You See Me.

The Page 69 Test: Vanishing Girls.

Writers Read: Katia Lief (July 2012).

Writers Read: Katia Lief.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jonathan Sperber's "Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life"

Jonathan Sperber, the author of The European Revolutions, 1848–1851, is the Curators’ Professor of History at the University of Missouri. He has written extensively on the social and political history of nineteenth-century Europe.

Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life:

As a professor, I generally don’t think much about how my books would be on screen. To take just two examples from previous books I have written: why would Hollywood be interested in filming a scholarly monograph dominated by statistical tables with equations in the appendix, or a book based primarily on nineteenth century civil court cases? Although it is still difficult to imagine a film version of Karl Marx’s life, at least it is very faintly within the realm of possibility, so I have taken on the unfamiliar task of imagining actors in the main roles.

For the older Karl Marx, I would suggest Philip Seymour Hoffman, from his wonderful performance in The Master. Scientologists and Marxists both should rest assured: in making this suggestion, I am not asserting in any way that either their doctrines or their founders have any similarities. But Hoffman’s portrayal of a determined leader of a small group of disciples, with ideas most of society regarded as peculiar, is not unlike the position in life of the older Marx. Thinking of an actor who could play Marx as a young man proved more difficult. Ultimately my choice was Johnny Galecki: best known for his comedic role as the physicist Leonard Hofstadter on The Big Bang Theory, he has also done more serious acting and would fit as the young man Karl Marx, who was both brash and reticent, privately convincing and self-assured, but publicly sometimes inarticulate.

A key role in any film about Marx’s life would be for Marx’s loyal friend, political associate, and chief disciple, Friedrich Engels. The Austrian actor Christoph Waltz would be an interesting possibility. The self-assured, arrogant and potentially violent characters he played in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained were not unlike Engels. Admittedly, Engels did not go around heavily armed and shooting people, but he did get into fist-fights with political opponents, and once, in a pub brawl in Manchester, developed legal problems, after poking someone in the eye with his umbrella. The lead female role in a Marx film would fall to his wife and life-long love Jenny von Westphalen. Michelle Dockery, who has done such a good job as the sensitive intelligent daughter of an aristocrat in Downton Abbey, would be appropriate for Jenny, who was herself very much the sensitive, intelligent offspring of an aristocratic family.

Learn more about Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life at the publisher's website.

The Page 99 Test: Karl Marx: A Nineteenth-Century Life.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lauren Roedy Vaughn's "OCD, the Dude, and Me"

Lauren Roedy Vaughn is an award-winning educator who has spent twenty years teaching English to high school students with language-based learning disabilities. Vaughn lives with her husband in Los Angeles, where she is an avid yogini and Big Lebowski nut.

Here she shares her preference for the director of an adaptation of her newly released, debut novel OCD, The Dude, and Me:

I hope Stephen Chbosky is alive and well in the alternative universe where my book becomes a movie because he is someone who I think could tackle bringing OCD, The Dude, and Me to the screen with a sensitive touch. I thought he did a beautiful job directing the film version of his YA novel. Mr. Chbosky honored his target audience; many of my students gave rave reviews, stating that the writer/director understood them. I learned about The Perks of Being a Wallflower after I wrote my book. A high school student brought it to my attention because he asked me to read it in order to help him understand the book’s ending revelation. I was happy to oblige because my student (a football player) was so taken by the book. When a book resonates with my football players, I pay attention. I prefer not to offer a cast list for my pretend film. I’d like readers to envision the characters as their imaginations see fit. I’m sure the teens who read my story will be more imaginative about the casting than I could be.

Learn more about the book and author at Lauren Roedy Vaughn's website.

Writers Read: Lauren Roedy Vaughn.

The Page 69 Test: OCD, The Dude, and Me.

--Marshal Zeringue

Steph Cha's "Follow Her Home"

Steph Cha is a graduate of Stanford University and Yale Law School. She lives in her native city of Los Angeles, California.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of Follow Her Home, her first novel:

Follow Her Home is a detective novel in the tradition of Raymond Chandler, featuring a Korean-American female protagonist. It takes place in Los Angeles, and hard-boiled detective fiction is a genre so wrapped up with film noir that I’ve always thought of my novel in cinematic terms. Casting, however, would prove a real challenge, even in my head. I would need five Asian-American women in speaking roles. Greedy? Sure. But not if I’d said white men.

Juniper Song is a Korean-American woman in her twenties, so Lucy Liu and Sandra Oh are too old and uh, who else is on the scene? I actually had the now-deceased model Daul Kim in mind when I imagined the character – tall, skinny, with a striking, androgynous face. Brenda Song, who is adorable and small and has been in a number of things lately, could play Lori Lim, the novel’s flirty femme. I’d need a willowy beautiful teenager to play Juniper’s sister Iris Song, and an Asian woman in her forties to play her mother in flashback. Maggie Cheung could play Lori’s steely mother Yujin Chung. Actually, she’d be ideal for the role.

There is a real dearth of Asian-American actors and actresses in Hollywood, which makes my novel even less likely to be made into a movie than the next guy’s. No personal bitterness here, but I would love to see more Asian faces on big screens – and for heaven’s sake, yellowface does not count.

Moving on, though. Luke Cook, Juniper’s handsome friend and sidekick, is definitely a Ryan Gosling, so please, Mr. Gosling’s agent, tell him that for me. Latinos in Hollywood are in the same kind of boat as Asians, but I have at least one idea for Diego Díaz, Juniper’s close friend and ex-boyfriend. He is definitely a Diego Luna type – small, boyish, with a nice smile. For his wife Jackie, who’s a little bit older – Selma Blair.

Luke’s father William Cook could be played by Bryan Cranston, and for the vintage sociopath John – how about Matt Damon? He’s not too busy to play a supporting character in my fake movie, is he? Finally, I would want Enrico Colantoni for my shlubby P.I. Chaz Lindley. He’s a little trim and handsome for the role, but any excuse to use Keith Mars.

This masterpiece which is definitely getting made would be directed by David Fincher or Rian Johnson. I want atmospheric noir with clean edges, and either of those directors would be perfectly acceptable.

(Here is what Juniper Song looks like in my head.)

Learn more about Follow Her Home, and visit Steph Cha's website and Twitter perch.

Read--Coffee with a Canine: Steph Cha and Duke.

--Marshal Zeringue

James Thompson's "Helsinki Blood"

With his first internationally published novel, Snow Angels, James Thompson proved himself Finland’s best and most popular representative in the rise of Nordic noir. It was selected as one of Booklist’s Best Crime Novel Debuts of the Year and nominated for an Edgar Award, an Anthony Award, and a Strand Critics Award. His novel, Lucifer’s Tears, has received critical acclaim from all quarters, including starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus, and was selected as one of the best novels of the year by Kirkus. Helsinki White was released to critical acclaim in 2012. The fourth book in the series, Helsinki Blood, was published in March, 2013. Thompson is also a reviewer for The New York Journal of Books and holds a Master’s degree from The University of Helsinki. The first three books in his Inspector Vaara series have been optioned for film.

Here Thompson shares some ideas for casting an adaptation of Helsinki Blood:

My problem with this exercise is that many of the actors I think would do a good job with characterizations in the book are the wrong ages. Also, it’s important that all the actors be intelligent, as they’ll need to absorb foreign languages to varying degrees. My protagonist is Kari Vaara. He is now, in the present, forty-four years old. He’s a complex man, intelligent, sometimes ruthless, sometimes compassionate. Matt Damon, I think possesses all the right qualities, including linguistics, and would do a good job, and is forty-two.

I can picture Jessica Alba doing a good job as Vaara’s wife. She’s beautiful, the right age, seems smart and charming, and as an actress could negotiate the difficulties of loving a man who does things she often doesn’t approve of. She also has an air about her that makes me think she would portray a good mother.

Milo and Sweetness, Vaara’s subordinates, collaborators and friends, are the problems. Milo is twenty-eight, has an extremely high IQ. He’s unpredictable and prone toward violence. I could imagine Giovanni Ribisi, Judd Nelson, or Johnny Depp in the role, but it would be difficult to portray any of them as that young.

Same with Sweetness. He’s twenty-three, huge—a monster-sized man—baby-faced, easy-going and good-natured, but extreme violence means nothing to him. No one who could pull that off comes to mind.

Learn more about the book and author at James Thompson's website and blog. Helsinki Blood is the fourth novel in the Inspector Vaara series.

The Page 69 Test: Snow Angels.

The Page 69 Test: Helsinki White.

Writers Read: James Thompson (April 2012).

My Book, The Movie: Helsinki White.

Writers Read: James Thompson.

The Page 69 Test: Helsinki Blood.

--Marshal Zeringue

Anita Hughes's "Market Street"

Anita Hughes was born in Sydney, Australia and had a charmed childhood that included petting koala bears, riding the waves on Bondi Beach, and putting an occasional shrimp on the barbie. Her writing career began at the age of eight, when she won a national writing contest in The Australian newspaper, and was named "One of Australia's Next Best Writers." (She still has the newspaper clipping.)

She received a B.A. in English Literature with a minor in Creative Writing from Bard College, and attended UC Berkeley's Masters in Creative Writing program.

Monarch Beach is Hughes's first novel.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of her recently released second novel, Market Street:

I write very visually - I can see characters and locations when I write. Market Street is set in San Francisco. We all know San Francisco makes a wonderful backdrop for movies - Vertigo, Nine Months, Escape From Alcatraz, Milk. There is an almost endless list of great films that have been shot in San Francisco. So that would be the easiest thing to cast (and I see the location as a character itself).

The main character in Market Street is Cassie Blake - the young wife of a UC Berkeley Ethics professor who must choose between her crumbling marriage and opening a food emporium in Fenton's, her mother's high end department store. Cassie is about thirty - a bright, spunky brunette who has to navigate unfamiliar waters when she discovers her husband has been seduced by a student. I have been a huge fan of Rachel Bilson ever since I discovered her on the television series The O.C. years ago. I think it's time she made the leap to movies and she'd be excellent as Cassie!

One of my favorite characters I've ever written is Alexis, Cassie's best friend. Alexis is beautiful, wealthy but somehow very vulnerable - and she is funny, I love humor in books. Gwyneth Paltrow would make a perfect Alexis. She wears clothes fabulously and she has can portray a kind of fragility while making you laugh.

I'm not even going to try to cast the male leads - Aidan, Cassie's husband or James, the handsome architect who comes into her life. I think every female reader has her own fantasy men - so I'll leave that to their imagination!

Learn more about the book and author at Anita Hughes's website.

Writers Read: Anita Hughes (July 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue

Sean Ferrell's "Man in the Empty Suit"

Sean Ferrell's novels include Numb (2010) and the newly released Man in the Empty Suit.

Here he shares some suggestions for casting the lead in an adaptation of Man in the Empty Suit:

My book is about a time traveler attending a party where all the guests are him of various ages, from 18 to 70, so the audience would need to be willing to see a lot of the main actor. There are, I'm sure, many actors that people would love to see on screen for an entire film, talking to himself (literally), and being both hero and villain in every shot. But for me, there's a list of three.

First, rest in peace Heath Ledger. As I was writing the book I happened to see 10 Things I Hate About You, Brokeback Mountain, and The Dark Knight, all within a few months of each other. Mr. Ledger was able to do anything, from comic to dramatic to tragically demented, and the nature of my book, in which a man is surrounded by various versions of himself, would demand that kind of variety. I was very saddened by his death as I think he'd only begun to tap the best parts of his artistry.

Second is Robert Downey Jr., who simply exhales charm, self-loathing, and sarcastic judgment with every breath. The main character in my book doesn't like much of himself--his past or his future--and early on this is expressed with a passive-aggressive humor and exhaustion that is, I think, Mr. Downey's stock-in-trade. His verbal wit and speed of delivery would be interesting to see going against itself as the protagonist gets into verbal sparring matches with older and younger versions of himself.

Finally, I think it would be amazing to see Idris Elba play the role. You can see the wheels turning in him as he works. There's depth, and charm, and a seriousness in his work, yet there is also an effortless quality. He's a remarkable actor and I'd love to see what he would do with a my protagonist, a man who feels pinned down by both his choices and his fate.

Learn more about the book and author at Sean Ferrell's website.

The Page 69 Test: Man in the Empty Suit.

--Marshal Zeringue