MY BOOK, THE MOVIE: Stephen Kiernan's "The Glass Château"

Friday, July 14, 2023

Stephen Kiernan's "The Glass Château"

As a journalist and novelist, Stephen P. Kiernan has published nearly five million words. His newspaper work garnered dozens of awards — including the George Polk Award for medical reporting, the Scripps Howard National Journalism Award, and the Freedom of Information Award from the Joseph Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida.

Stephen’s newest novel is The Glass Chateau. He is also author of the novels Universe of Two, The Curiosity (now in television series development), The Baker's Secret (a regional bestseller), and The Hummingbird. He has also written two nonfiction books, Last Rights and Authentic Patriotism. His work has been translated into many languages.

Here Kiernan dreamcasts an adaptation of The Glass Chateau:

The main character in The Glass Chateau is a broken man with a huge heart and some hidden creative gifts. He saw his family killed by Nazi soldiers. As a result he became an assassin for the French Resistance. So he is both grieving and guilt-ridden, and he keeps those emotions buried -- most of the time.

The right male lead is known for playing a similar character, Jon Snow in Game of Thrones. Kit Harrington would make an excellent Asher Green.

Asher's wife, beautiful and graceful and doomed, simply must be Mila Kunis. When she dies, everyone in the theater must feel it.

The female lead is Marie, who grows flowers and vegetables that she delivers by donkey-drawn cart. But she is also a fighter and a survivor, who cares deeply about the future of her country. She is passionate but reserved, sharing information with her fellow townspeople but guarded when it comes to love. Rooney Mara, who showed such powerful self-possession in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, would be ideal.

I'm only half-joking when I say that the chateau in my novel should be played by the Chateau d'Orquevaux [image. left], home to an artists' colony where I wrote about a third of this book. A gorgeous restored masterpiece, this was the setting I had in mind from the moment I arrived.