Paul Vidich's "The Poet’s Game"

Paul Vidich's seventh and newest novel is The Poet's Game. His previous novel, Beirut Station: Two Lives of a Spy, was selected by CrimeReads as one of the best espionage novels of 2023. Vidich's debut novel, An Honorable Man, was selected by Publishers Weekly as a Top 10 Mystery and Thriller in 2016. It was followed by The Good Assassin. His third novel, The Coldest Warrior, was widely praised in England and America, earning strong reviews from The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times. It was shortlisted for the UK’s Staunch Prize and chosen as a Notable Selection of 2020 by CrimeReads.

Here Vidich dreamcasts an adaptation of The Poet's Game:

The English director, John Madden, would be a good fit to make The Poet’s Game a movie. Madden directed Operation Mincemeat and much earlier in his career, he director the multiple- Oscar winner, Shakespeare in Love with a screenplay by Tom Stoppard. Both movies had ensembles casts and the story lines blended personal lives into an historical moment. The Poet’s Game shares those qualities: the tense political conflict between Moscow and Washington in 2018 provides the backdrop for a love story. Madden has the light touch of a director who can bring people’s stories alive and still sustain the suspense of a thrilling plot.

My main character, Alex Matthews, could be played by the chameleon-like Damian Lewis, whose remarkable range makes him a good candidate for the role. Lewis is a smart actor and has the right amount of devious sophistication to play a spy moving two steps ahead of surveillance. Against Lewis, I would cast Natalie Portman in the role of Anna, the young Ukrainian-American translator married to Matthews. Portman can move between being loving and vulnerable and cold and determined, the opposing emotional qualities that make up Anna’s personality.

The script could be written by Tom Stoppard, but if he’s not available, I would nominate Stephen Schiff, a friend, who wrote and served as executive producer on the hit TV series The Americans. Schiff understands how to pull off an actor’s seeming and being with artful dialogue.

Visit Paul Vidich's website.

Q&A with Paul Vidich.

My Book, The Movie: The Mercenary.

The Page 69 Test: The Mercenary.

Writers Read: Paul Vidich (January 2022).

The Page 69 Test: The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin.

Writers Read: Paul Vidich (October 2023).

My Book, The Movie: Beirut Station.

The Page 69 Test: Beirut Station.

Writers Read: Paul Vidich.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jessica Anya Blau's "Shopgirls"

Jessica Anya Blau was born in Boston and raised in Southern California. Her novels have been translated into many different languages, and featured on The Today Show, Good Morning America, CNN and NPR, and in Cosmo, Vanity Fair, In Style, Country Living, Bust, Time Out, Parade, Oprah Summer Reads, Oprah Daily and other national publications. The books have been optioned for film and television. Blau's short stories and essays have been published in numerous magazines, journals and anthologies. Blau also works as a screenwriter, a ghostwriter, and sometimes as a writing professor. Currently, she lives in New York.

Here the author dreamacasts an adaptation of her new novel, Shopgirls:

A story about a young woman finding her way through life in day-glo, high-fashion, San Francisco in 1985.

Zippy is on a quest. She wants to 1. find her father as she is the result of a one-night-stand and her mother doesn’t remember her father’s name. 2. Figure out how to be an adult (her mother was no example). 3. Learn how to kiss a man and date (she was a theater geek in school). And, 4. Figure out how to make a living doing what you love (Zippy loves clothes and fashion).

The Cast:

Zippy: she’s 19 and grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store in San Francisco. When her mother’s boyfriend moved in, she slept in the hall beside the bathroom with the swollen, un-shuttable door.

Zippy has a great eye and an excellent sense of style. She buys some clothes from the Salvation Army, fixes them up, and gets a job at I. Magnin, the most exclusive department store in San Francisco.

Zippy needs to be played by someone whose name we don’t yet know. Anyone plucky, smart, joyful, and open to the world.

The Lifetime Salesgirls: It’s 1985 so they are all called "girls" no matter how old they are, and at work they are referred to as "Miss." Some are resentful of youthful, energetic Zippy, and some love her and want to help her navigate adulthood.

They could be played by:

Parker Posey — mean Miss Yolanda

Amy Adams — confused Miss Liaskas

Julia Roberts and Kyra Sedgwick — the snooty Miss Braughn and Miss Braughn

Lucy Liu — the phlegmatic Miss Lee

Viola Davis — the watchful Miss Karen

Da’Vine Joy Randolph — the gung-ho Miss Dani

Zippy's “family”:

Nicole Kidman — Zippy’s sweet but childish mother who works at the Hardware Depot (and loves it! She wants Zippy to work there, too).

Leonardo DiCaprio — Zippy’s mother’s boyfriend, Howard, who is hapless, kind, and loves watching PTL club and eating Tang out of the jar. He slips into what he thinks of as Elizabethan English when he’s been drinking, which he does every night.

Jenna Ortega — Zippy’s smart, worldly, rich-born roommate, Raquel.

There are other characters, too, but they’re a surprise when they show up, and I don’t want to give anything away!

Learn more about the book and author at Jessica Anya Blau's website, Facebook, Instagram, and Threads.

Coffee with a Canine: Jessica Anya Blau and Pippa.

The Page 69 Test: The Wonder Bread Summer.

My Book, The Movie: The Wonder Bread Summer.

The Page 69 Test: The Trouble with Lexie.

My Book, The Movie: The Trouble with Lexie.

Writers Read: Jessica Anya Blau (June 2016).

The Page 69 Test: Mary Jane.

Q&A with Jessica Anya Blau.

Coffee with a Canine: Jessica Anya Blau & Baby.

--Marshal Zeringue

Natalie Jenner's "Austen at Sea"

Natalie Jenner is the author of the instant international bestseller The Jane Austen Society and Bloomsbury Girls. A Goodreads Choice Award runner-up for historical fiction and finalist for best debut novel, The Jane Austen Society was a USA Today and #1 national bestseller, and has been sold for translation in twenty countries. Jenner is formerly a lawyer and independent bookshop owner. She was born in England and raised in Oakville, Ontario, where she lives with her family.

Here the author dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Austen at Sea:

I had the idea for my new novel Austen at Sea for many years, ever since learning of two Boston women in 1852 fangirling over Jane Austen to the point of writing to her last surviving sibling, Admiral Sir Francis Austen, and asking for her signature--which seemed to me a pretty bold gesture at any time in history!

When I eventually sat down to write a very fictional version of this anecdote, I immediately pictured the two female protagonists as the older Dashwood sisters in a 2008 BBC adaptation of Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility. British actress Hattie Morahan had the angular looks I imagined for Henrietta Stevenson, the older, more restrained sister in my book—and Charity Wakefield the blonde, blue-eyed ones of younger sister Charlotte (which doubly came in handy when she takes part in a shipboard performance of A Tale of Two Cities as Charles Dickens’s Victorian angel, Lucie Manette).

A lot of movies inspired my book as well, especially Somewhere in Time with its famous opening scene line of “Come back to me". I reconfigured this in my own story as “May we come to you?" from the sisters’ second letter to Sir Francis, a line which will constantly refrain in his lonely ninety-one-year-old’s head. I even named my theatre impresario character Richard Fawcett Robinson in reference to Christopher Plummer’s theatre character of the same surname in that film, imagining the latter as a possible descendant of my own. The bedroom set design of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir was another huge inspiration, leading not only to the bow window study of the admiral but also the large brass telescope on a stand, which turned out to become an even bigger plot point than this "pantser" knew setting out.

Finally, the romantic lead in Austen at Sea is the youngest member of the Massachusetts state supreme court, Justice Thomas Nash, who finds himself a most reluctant chaperone on board ship to my two female leads, daughters of his colleague Justice William Stevenson. I had only one actor in mind the entire time I wrote: Johnny Flynn from the 2020 Autumn de Wilde adaptation of Austen’s novel Emma. I spent the first few weeks of the pandemic in March 2020 watching this movie on repeat as a huge source of comfort while waiting for, and worrying over, the imminent release of my debut novel The Jane Austen Society at a time when bookstores everywhere were closed. I had been initially—and stupidly—resistant to the idea of Flynn’s casting in that film when it was first announced; since then, I have learned to trust the movie-making gods a bit better. In a way, using Flynn's performance in that film as inspiration for my romantic lead in Austen at Sea was my very whimsical and writerly attempt at atonement!

Visit Natalie Jenner's website.

Q&A with Natalie Jenner.

My Book, The Movie: The Jane Austen Society.

My Book, The Movie: Bloomsbury Girls.

--Marshal Zeringue

Paulette Kennedy's "The Artist of Blackberry Grange"

Paulette Kennedy is the author of The Artist of Blackberry Grange (2025), The Devil and Mrs. Davenport (2024), The Witch of Tin Mountain (2023), and Parting the Veil (2021), which received the HNS Review Editor’s Choice Award. Her work has been featured in People Magazine, The Mary Sue, Paste Magazine, and BookBub. Originally from the Missouri Ozarks, she now lives with her family and a menagerie of rescue pets in sunny Southern California, where sometimes, on the very best days, the mountains are wreathed in gothic fog.

Here Kennedy dreamcasts an adaptation of The Artist of Blackberry Grange:

Although none of my books have been optioned for film, I’ve had some interest, and it’s always fun to consider who might play my characters in a film adaptation. With my latest novel, The Artist of Blackberry Grange, which is set in the 1920s and centers on the experiences of a young caregiver who encounters a series of haunted paintings in her great-aunt’s mansion, I had some very strong ideas about who I would cast as I was crafting the novel.

Sadie Halloran, my main character, is a down-on-her-luck former flapper seeking a fresh start and financial security as her great-aunt’s caregiver. I picture Saoirse Ronan as Sadie, because she has the emotional range, appearance, and Irish heritage to embody my heroine, just as I imagined her. Plus, Saoirse just looks like she walked out of the 1920s, and I’ve admired her acting ever since she played Briony Tallis in Atonement.

For Marguerite Thorne, Sadie’s great-aunt, an acclaimed artist now suffering from dementia, whose story in the novel exists in two different time periods—the Gilded Age and the 1920s—I would cast Sadie Sink as young Marguerite. With her long red hair, expressive eyes, and her youthful, rebellious spirit, she would be perfect in the role. For the elder version of Marguerite, I picture Patricia Clarkson, who is the embodiment of worldly elegance and sophistication—but with a playful side that speaks to Marguerite’s passionate and spirited youth.

For Beckett Hill, Marguerite’s gardener and chauffeur, I’d cast Jeremy Allen White. I love him as Carmy in The Bear, and since Beckett can also cook, it would be fitting. Plus, White has the edge and emotional pathos to portray a man who hasn’t always had an easy way of things in life. With his muscular build, his gorgeous curls and soulful eyes, he fits Beckett’s description in the novel perfectly.

For Weston Chase, the main ghost haunting Blackberry Grange, I’d cast Matthew Goode. He has the refined charisma and morally gray appeal to embody my novel’s seductive, restless spirit. Debonair, charming, and darkly handsome, he’s the perfect gothic hero.

Visit Paulette Kennedy's website.

The Page 69 Test: Parting the Veil.

The Page 69 Test: The Devil and Mrs. Davenport.

--Marshal Zeringue

Adam Plantinga's "The Ascent"

Adam Plantinga’s first book, 400 Things Cops Know, was nominated for an Agatha Award and won the 2015 Silver Falchion award for best nonfiction crime reference. It was hailed as “truly excellent” by author Lee Child and deemed “the new Bible for crime writers” by The Wall Street Journal. His second book, also nonfiction, is Police Craft. Plantinga began his career in law enforcement in 2001 as a Milwaukee police officer. He is currently a sergeant with the San Francisco Police Department assigned to street patrol.

Here Plantinga dreamcasts an adaptation of The Ascent, his debut novel:

My debut novel The Ascent is a thriller set in a violent maximum security prison. The main character is Kurt Argento, an ex-Detroit street cop. After running afoul of a corrupt local sheriff's department, he's imprisoned under false charges. Julie Wakefield, a grad student and the governor of Missouri's daughter, is touring the prison for a grad school class. A malfunction in the prison's security system releases a horde of prisoners and a fierce struggle for survival ensues. Argento has to help a small band of staff and civilians, including Julie and her state trooper handlers, make their way through the prison to safety.

I didn't start off with any particular actors in mind when I began writing The Ascent, although another character remarks that Argento looks like an even angrier Jason Statham. Argento is 5'9 and just over 200 pounds and exudes menace. He's one of the good guys but when you see him walking towards your car, you instinctively lock your doors. I think ideally the casting department would find him on a rugby field somewhere, possibly getting into a post-game brawl with the other team.

Julie Wakefield is cerebral and athletic, a distance runner who competes in endurance events. She doesn't have any of the training or experience Argento does, but she's tough and resourceful so when everything breaks down in the prison, she more than holds her own. I see her like a young Emily Blunt. Emily Blunt rules. She can range from playful (The Fall Guy) to convincingly gritty and dark (Sicario).

The Ascent was optioned by Universal for television last year so there's a chance, however slim, that it may find its way to the screen at some point.

Visit Adam Plantinga's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nancy Thayer's "Summer Light on Nantucket"

Nancy Thayer is the author of 35 novels, including Summer Love, Family Reunion, A Nantucket Christmas, and The Hot Flash Club. Her books are about families, friendship, and the beautiful island of Nantucket where she’s lived for 39 years with her husband Charley Walters and their spoiled cat Callie. Sometimes they invite their thousands of grandchildren to visit. She loves libraries, bookstores, and zoom parties.

Thayer's novels have appeared on the New York Times best-seller lists, in Redbook, Good Housekeeping, and Cosmo UK, and are translated into many languages.

Her novel Let It Snow was made into a Hallmark Christmas movie entitled Nantucket Noel in 2021.

A Fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference in 1983, she was awarded the RT 2015 Career Achievement Award for Mainstream Fiction.

Here Thayer dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, Summer Light on Nantucket:

Blythe Benedict, 45, is on Nantucket with her four children, her ex-mother-in-law, her ex-husband, his new girlfriend, and two new really attractive boyfriends.

Kate Hudson would be perfect to play Blythe. She’s the same age, immediately likeable, and she loves to have fun.

Colin Farrell would be her Irish boyfriend, and James Norton would be her American boyfriend even though he isn’t American or even forty yet, because, well, look at the man.

Visit Nancy Thayer's website.

The Page 69 Test: Summer House.

The Page 69 Test: Beachcombers.

My Book, The Movie: Beachcombers.

Writers Read: Nancy Thayer (May 2015).

My Book, The Movie: The Guest Cottage.

The Page 69 Test: The Guest Cottage.

The Page 69 Test: Summer Love.

Writers Read: Nancy Thayer.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alice Henderson's "The Vanishing Kind"

In addition to being a writer, Alice Henderson is a dedicated wildlife researcher, geographic information systems specialist, and bioacoustician. She documents wildlife on specialized recording equipment, checks remote cameras, creates maps, and undertakes wildlife surveys to determine what species are present on preserves, while ensuring there are no signs of poaching. She’s surveyed for the presence of grizzlies, wolves, wolverines, jaguars, endangered bats, and more.

Here Henderson dreamcasts an adaptation of her latest Alex Carter mystery thriller, The Vanishing Kind:

In The Vanishing Kind, wildlife biologist Alex Carter encounters rugged New Mexico terrain, threatening intruders, and mysteries surrounding an archaeological dig, all in search of elusive jaguars.

In addition to being about the importance of wildlife and habitat conservation, my books are suspenseful action thrillers. Chase scenes, blizzards, sandstorms, literal cliffhangers, and dangerous confrontations fill the pages. So I'd want an action director to tackle The Vanishing Kind, like Justin Lin, who directed some great entries into the Fast & Furious series, or Chad Stahelski, who directs the John Wick films, or the Russo Brothers, who directed some of the really action-packed, suspenseful Marvel movies.

As for actors, my wildlife biologist lead character is a smart adventurer. She knows the martial art Jeet Kune Do and how to survive in the wild. Scarlett Johansson would be perfect. She's phenomenal in action roles and can also take on moving, emotional scenes.

My recurring character Casey MacCrae is a daring, Scottish helicopter pilot who has taken on dangerous criminals in the past in his mission to set wrong to right. He's a bit haunted, mysterious, and unpredictable. Gerard Butler or James McAvoy would be great choices to play Casey because both actors are fantastic in action scenes and both are capable of expressing great depth and emotion on screen.

One main character in the novel is Dr. Enrique Espinoza, a kind, jovial, light-hearted archaeologist who is threatened by hostile vigilantes. He and his team are excavating the gravesite of a 16th century conquistador. Michael Peña would be an excellent choice for Espinoza because Peña is terrific with roles involving humor and action, as he was in Ant-Man.

The main baddie in The Vanishing Kind is the head of the group of anti-immigrant vigilantes who terrorize a town in New Mexico, harass the nearby archaeology team, and threaten Alex Carter's work conserving jaguars. A federally-listed, critically endangered species, jaguars struggle to cross obstructions along the U.S./Mexico border. Jaguars need to be able to disperse in order to find mates, sources of food, and new habitat. But the vigilantes want a single, impenetrable wall across the entire border. Walton Goggins would be a great choice for this role. He's fabulous with dangerous, unpredictable, and extreme roles full of vitriol, as we see with his roles like in Justified.

Visit Alice Henderson's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Vanishing Kind.

--Marshal Zeringue

Charles B. Fancher's "Red Clay"

Charles B. Fancher is a writer and editor, and a former senior corporate communications executive for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He also worked as a journalist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Detroit Free Press, and WSM-TV, as well as a publicist for the ABC Television Network. Fancher was previously a member of the School of Communications faculty at Howard University and the adjunct faculty at Temple University. He lives in Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains.

Here Fancher dreamcasts an adaptation of his new novel, Red Clay:

Red Clay is a multigenerational family saga told through the shared memories of Adelaide “Addie” Parker, an elderly white woman when readers meet her, and Eileen Parker, a Black college student still in her teens. Although they share a surname and roots in the same southern Alabama town, the two women have never met until a cold winter day in 1943, when Addie shows up after the funeral of Felix H. Parker, Eileen’s grandfather, and announces: “A lifetime ago, my family owned yours.”

It is the beginning of a conversation in which the story of Felix, an enslaved boy on the plantation owned by Addie’s family when the Civil War ends, unfolds against the backdrop of Reconstruction and eventually the arrival of the Jim Crow era. Neither Addie nor Eileen knows the full story—one of many twists and turns and secrets within secrets—but together they weave a rich tapestry of societal change and racial animus that continues to reverberate through contemporary American life.

Through it all, Felix, an unwitting eight-year-old pawn in a scheme by the plantation owner to save face and fortune—perseveres to achieve success for himself and for his family. By the time he dies, in his late eighties in 1943, Felix has faced hard times and good times and has emerged as a man of substance, tempered by all he has experienced.

Red Clay has many distinctive characters, but the principal ones (with the dream castings in parentheses) are:

--Felix Parker, an enslaved boy who matures into a respected carpenter and Black community leader after Emancipation (as an adult, Michael B. Jordan)

--Plessant Parker, Felix’s father and valet to the Road’s End plantation owner (Idris Elba)

--Elmira Parker, Felix’s mother and big-house cook (Viola Davis)

--Zilpha Parker, Felix’s wife (as a young woman, Zendaya; as an older woman, Halle Berry)

--John Robert Parker, owner of Road’s End plantation (George Clooney)

--Marie Louise Parker, wife of John Robert (Emma Stone)

--Addie Parker, youngest child of John Robert and Marie Louise (as a young woman, Florence Pugh; as an old woman, Sissy Spacek or Linda Purl)

--Claude Parker, middle child of John Robert and Marie Louise (as a young man, Paul Mescal; as a mature man, Brad Pitt or Chris Pine)

--Jean Louis Parker, eldest child of John Robert and Marie Louise (Timothée Chalamet)

--Jimmy Flowers, Felix’s best friend (as an adult, David Oyelowo)

The Felix Parker, Jimmy Flowers, and Addie Parker characters have significant roles as children, but rather than suggest specific individuals, I would hope that a casting director would see all three as requiring actors who appear youthful, but whose skills would enable them to convey a loss of innocence at young ages.

Visit Charles B. Fancher's website.

The Page 69 Test: Red Clay.

Q&A with Charles B. Fancher.

--Marshal Zeringue

Robert Inman's "Villages"

Novelist, screenwriter and playwright Robert Inman is a native of Elba, Alabama where he began his writing career in junior high school with his hometown weekly newspaper. He left a 31-year career in television journalism in 1996 to devote full time to creative writing.

Here Inman dreamcasts the leads for an adaptation of his new novel, Villages:

Would my new novel Villages make a good movie? You bet. I’ve worked for years as a screenwriter, and I believe this story has all the ingredients for film – authentic characters, a compelling plotline, conflict, love, courage and hope. Am I being immodest? Why not.

Now, who to play the lead – a young war veteran, wounded in body in spirit, trying to come to grips with the traumatic experience that has turned his life upside down. My vote is for Timothée Chalamet. I’ve been following his career since the beginning, and I admire his innate ability to inhabit complex characters and bring them relatably to life. I point especially to his role in Beautiful Boy as a youth struggling with addiction, and his most recent turn as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown. He’s the real deal.

The other key character in Villages is a small-town doctor who has been my veteran’s friend and mentor for all of his young life. Here, I give the nod to Bill Pullman. Bill was in my first movie, a Hallmark Hall of Fame adaptation of my novel Home Fires Burning. He was just getting started, but he already had all the great acting chops. At the beginning of the filming in Georgia, the cast and director and I sat down for a table reading of my script. There was a wrenching scene involving Bill’s character, and he read the part with such incredible depth of emotion that he had all the rest of us teary-eyed. I’d love to see him portray my doctor the same way.

I love movies. I love writing for movies, especially adapting my own work. It’s telling the story but using the special language and perception of film. I could do Villages in a heartbeat.

Visit Robert Inman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Villages.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lincoln Mitchell's "Three Years Our Mayor"

Lincoln Mitchell is an instructor in the School of International and Public Affairs and the political science department at Columbia University. He has written numerous books, scholarly articles, and opinion columns on American politics, foreign policy, the history and politics of San Francisco, and baseball. In addition to his academic interests, Mitchell has worked in domestic political campaigns and on foreign policy projects in dozens of countries, particularly in the former Soviet Union. Mitchell earned his BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his PhD from Columbia University. He lives in New York and San Francisco.

Mitchell's new book is Three Years Our Mayor: George Moscone and the Making of Modern San Francisco.

Here the author dreamcasts the lead for an adaptation of Three Years Our Mayor:

I do not have a deep knowledge of film or of actors, so rather than try to cast my whole book, Three Years Our Mayor: George Moscone and the Making of Modern San Francisco, I will focus simply on who would play the lead role, that of George Moscone. When thinking about who might play Moscone in a film version of my biography of him two things come to mind.

First, Moscone has been played on film before. In the 2008 biopic of Harvey Milk titled simply Milk, Moscone was paid played by Victor Garber. Garber is a fine actor, but in that film Moscone was peripheral to the story, so could be played by a character actor. However, for a movie about Moscone, Garber is not the right guy.

Second, the question of who might play George Moscone is fun to answer because he could, and should, be played by a real movie star. Moscone had a career, and life, that calls for star treatment. He was a young man from modest background who was became All-City basketball player in high school and went on to a successful career in politics, was a bit of womanizer and, according to many who knew him, had movie star looks and charisma. Additionally, his life ended in horrific but nonetheless cinematic circumstances.

Moscone died when I was a child and although I remember the day he died and how upset many, but not everybody, I knew was, I never met the man, so it is tough for me to have a real sense of what movie star should portray him on film. However, it happened that while I was mulling over this question, I had the opportunity to have breakfast with a friend who is a bit older than me and knew Moscone quite well, having worked with him for many years. We talked about it and he agreed that a real movie star should play Moscone.

Based on our conversation and my own limited knowledge of film, for the movie of George Moscone's life, I would cast Brad Pitt in the leading role. Pitt is a good-looking leading man type and can pull off the kind of grace, athleticism, charisma and complexity that Moscone had. I had briefly entertained the idea of Jason Segal as well. The role would be a more serious than many of Segal’s role, but I think he has the versatility to play Moscone. He is also a handsome guy with a friendly and casual air about him that would help. Additionally, Segal is Jewish, and there is a long tradition of Jews and Italian Americans portraying each other in film.

On balance, either Pitt or Segal would be fine, but filling out the rest of the cast is beyond my ken.

Visit Lincoln Mitchell's website.

The Page 99 Test: San Francisco Year Zero.

The Page 99 Test: The Giants and Their City.

The Page 99 Test: Three Years Our Mayor.

Writers Read: Lincoln A. Mitchell.

--Marshal Zeringue