Megan Chance's "Glamorous Notions"

Megan Chance is the critically acclaimed, award-winning author of more than twenty novels, including A Dangerous Education, A Splendid Ruin, Bone River, and An Inconvenient Wife. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest.

Here Chance dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Glamorous Notions:

Glamorous Notions takes place in 1950s Rome and Hollywood during the Cold War, where propaganda and communist plots were all the rage in real life and the movies, and my costume designer heroine handles movie star scandals with aplomb even as she hides her own. It was only natural that I would have actors cast in my head as I wrote it. The entire story is one big set-piece, with the streets of Rome, movie studio sound stages, and famous Los Angeles restaurants as its backdrops. I think it would lend itself very well to the movies.

I needed an actress who could go from unassuming to confident and beautiful, and for that I ended up with Florence Pugh, who can frankly play anything. I thought she was a great pick to take on my Elsie Gruner/Lena Taylor, who transforms herself from a pig-farmer’s daughter to the most-requested costume designer in Hollywood.

For Lena’s best friend in Rome, the mysterious, chameleon like woman who changes Lena’s look and life, and plunges her into a danger Lena doesn’t realize until far too late, I chose Jodie Comer, an actress I love. I’ve loved her since the White Princess, and Killing Eve only cemented that love. She can play deceptive and bewitching with one hand tied behind her back.

As for Lena’s screenwriter fiancé, I needed someone who could do both vulnerability and charisma, who struggles with his wish to change the world, his inner anger, his self-confidence and doubt—the things every writer struggles with. For that, I chose Oscar Isaac.

Flavio, the famous costume designer who takes on Lena as his assistant, who is aristocratic, uber-talented, and whose own flaws bring him down, was either Jeremy Irons or Daniel Day Lewis, depending on the day.

Well, I can dream, can’t I?

Visit Megan Chance's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Splendid Ruin.

The Page 69 Test: A Splendid Ruin.

Q&A with Megan Chance.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Education.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Education.

Writers Read: Megan Chance (February 2023).

Writers Read: Megan Chance.

--Marshal Zeringue