Jessica Brockmole is the author of At the Edge of Summer, the internationally bestselling Letters from Skye, which was named one of the best books of 2013 by Publishers Weekly, and Something Worth Landing For, a novella featured in Fall of Poppies: Stories of Love and the Great War.Here Brockmole dreamcasts an adaptation of her latest novel, Woman Enters Left:
Woman Enters Left takes place in the 1920s and the 1950s over two cross-country road trips—one with an aspiring screenwriter driving a Model T towards hopeful fame in Hollywood, the other with a jaded actress driving across Route 66 to escape that same Hollywood. In each storyline, I tried to evoke films from that era—1950s Louise narrates a story in widescreen Technicolor and, in the 1920s, Ethel and Florrie tell theirs like a silent movie, through written words (in their case, diaries instead of intertitles) and close-ups of expressive faces. As I wrote the book, I watched a lot of movies from both eras and called it “research,” so when asked to mentally cast the film version of Woman Enters Left, I can’t help but do it with actors from those eras. So if you will indulge me….Learn more about the book and author at Jessica Brockmole's website, and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
Florrie, the screenwriter with the Model T and a big secret, is all quiet emotion. On the screen, she’d be the one with big, expressive eyes, emoting for all she’s worth to the close-up shots. With delicate features and what her best friend Ethel describes as hair “like Botticelli’s Venus,” I see her as played by an actress like Maud Fealy or Bessie Love.
I picture Ethel, petite and dark-haired, as played by someone like Clara Bow or Madge Bellamy, someone expressive, lively, and who, as, Florrie put it, “lights up the street like a Roman candle.” My character doesn’t quite match the reputed wildness of those actresses, but Ethel reclaims this vitality on the drive across the United States.
Louise, on a solitary road trip in 1952, is also looking to reclaim the fierceness she brought to Hollywood fifteen years ago. She narrates her journey wryly, showing flashes of stubbornness and humor during her adventure. It’s perhaps too easy to give this role to a heavyweight like Lauren Bacall, but I really can’t picture anyone else poised with such silky grace behind the wheel of her convertible or speaking her lines with such exquisite dryness. As you read Woman Enters Left, I dare you to not picture Bacall on the pages.
The Page 69 Test: Letters from Skye.
My Book, The Movie: Letters from Skye.
--Marshal Zeringue
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