Brenda Janowitz's "Recipe for a Happy Life"

Brenda Janowitz attended Cornell University and Hofstra Law School, where she was a member of the Law Review and won the Law Review Writing Competition. Janowitz has worked as a lawyer, and as a career counselor at two New York City law schools. Her books include Jack with a Twist and Scot on the Rocks.

Her new novel, Recipe for a Happy Life, is about three generations of women with a culture all their own. When Hannah finds herself spending the summer with her glamorous grandmother, a widow six times over, at her sprawling beach-front Hamptons estate, she learns that there’s more than one recipe for happiness.

A story of mothers and daughters, grandmothers and grandchildren, Recipe for a Happy Life is a quirky story about correcting the mistakes from your past and trying to create a future for yourself.

Here Janowitz dreamcasts an adaptation of Recipe for a Happy Life:

Oooh, this one’s tough, because one of the main characters in the book is a 76 year old grandmother, and there aren’t exactly a ton of 76 year-old grandmothers running around. Or, if there are, we don’t get to see them that often. Hollywood likes ‘em young, I think.

I think Joan Collins would be perfect to play the part of Hannah’s grandmother, Vivienne, the glamorous widow six times over, but my editor likes Shirley MacLaine. (Joan, Shirley, call me!)

The granddaughter, Hannah, is at a place in her life where she’s really lost. We’d need an actress who could really express that—the sense of loss, the sense of not knowing who she is or where she’s going.

There are so many talented actresses I love: Natalie Portman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jennifer Garner, Drew Barrymore. Each would bring something really special to the story.

Learn more about the book and author at Brenda Janowitz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael Innis-Jiménez's "Steel Barrio"

Michael Innis-Jiménez is an assistant professor and director of graduate studies in the Department of American Studies at the University of Alabama. He has also served as a scholar for The Latino New South Project, a public history project sponsored by a three museum consortium consisting of the Levine Museum of the New South (Charlotte, NC), The Atlanta History Museum, and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Here he dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, Steel Barrio: The Great Mexican Migration to South Chicago, 1915-1940:

As a work of non-fiction I wasn’t sure if I could come up with a dream cast for the movie version of Steel Barrio. In the end, I had fun and I think I came up with a great cast of primarily Latino/a actors that would help bring to life early Mexican South Chicago.

I would start by getting Gregory Nava, Edward James Olmos, or John Sayles to direct. They each have experience directing socially relevant movies with Latino working-class themes. Edward James Olmos could also serve as the narrator and as Jesse Escalante, the person who collected many of the oral histories. Two men critical to the gathering and maintaining of the interviews, data, and primary sources important to Steel Barrio are Manuel Gamio and Paul S. Taylor. Oliver Platt could star as Gamio and Jeff Bridges as Taylor.

Three of the major figures in the book whom we watch develop as leaders throughout Steel Barrio are Tejana social worker Mercedes Rios-Radica, business owner and athletic club organizer Eduardo Peralta, and track worker turned newspaperman and boarding house owner Francisco Huerta. America Ferrera would be perfect as the smart, tenacious, and socially conscious Rios-Radica. George Lopez could be Huerta and Hector Elizondo would bring Peralta back to life.

The other main characters would be the Mexican immigrants who enter South Chicago in the 1920s as teenagers or adolescents but progress into their 40s by the end of the book. Jimmy Smits would play Justino Cordero, Michael DeLorenzo would be Serafín García, Benicio del Toro would be Benigno Castillo, and the rest of the immigrant men we watch grow up include Esai Morales, Benjamin Bratt, Bobby Cannavale, Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Michael Peña. Andy Garcia would play Alfredo de Avila, part of the group of immigrants above who becomes a union organizer. Justino Cordero eventually marries Polish-American Carolyn Kon, who would be played by Cameron Diaz. Sidney Levin, the non-Mexican pal of the boys/men listed above, would be played by David Arquette.

An important scene in the movie would be the courtroom confrontation between a young anti-Mexican municipal judge and the acting Mexican consul. These parts would be played by Matthew McConaughey and Martin Sheen respectively. The consul’s wife, Salma Hayek as Mila Dominguez, is a famous Mexican singer and active in aid organization. Other consuls during this period would be played by Gael García Bernal and Danny Pino. Alfred Molina would play Jose Vasconcelos, prominent Mexican politician and author of La Raza Cosmica.

Two Catholic priests who were instrumental in the Mexican Church in Chicago include Spaniards James Tort and Domingo Zaldivares. Javier Bardem could star as Tort and Lou Diamond Phillips as Zaldivares. Liam Neeson would be Lacy Simms, protestant missionary in the neighborhood.

Mark Harmon, Dennis Franz, and Ed O’Neill would play steel-mill managers and Edie Falco could be Mrs. Kemball, head of a social service agency.

The Svalina family, South Chicago shop owners and friends of the Mexican immigrant community, would be played by Lily Tomlin as the matriarch, Adam Arkin as her husband, and Zac Efron as their son Sam.

Learn more about the book and author at Michael Innis-Jiménez's website and the Steel Barrio Facebook page.

The Page 99 Test: Steel Barrio.

--Marshal Zeringue

Zygmunt J. B. Plater's "The Snail Darter and the Dam"

Zygmunt J. B. Plater is professor of law and director of the Land & Environmental Law Program at Boston College Law School. He chaired the State of Alaska Oil Spill Commission’s Legal Research Task Force, is lead author of an environmental law casebook, and has participated in numerous citizen environmental initiatives. He lives in Newton Highlands, MA.

Here Plater dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, The Snail Darter and the Dam: How Pork-Barrel Politics Endangered a Little Fish and Killed a River:

I had asked Jonathan Harr (A Civil Action; The Lost Caravaggio) to write the book about this dramatic fight between a little fish and a dam, between local citizens and national pork-barrel politics. But Harr said “No, you need to write it, because you were there,”… and, he said, “write it like a movie!”

So I did. If they make my book into a film, here’s who I’d like to play the lead roles—

Albert Davis [Tom Hanks] — a shy but powerful Tennessee farmer, a reluctant leader whose family farm is being condemned almost entirely for a corporate developer’s resale profits, not for the dammed lake; hesitant to talk, but when he describes what is being lost, even reporters cry.

Jean Ritchey [Sally Field] — a small, feisty Tennessee famer whose family holds out for more than a dozen years, fighting hard; she testifies repeatedly in Congress, helps build the economic case against the dam, and sets up one of the federal agency’s most embarrassing moments.

Dr. David Etnier [J.K. Simmons] — a feisty, laconic, expert ichthyologist, raconteur, and beer drinker; knows every perch species on planet Earth; bent over one day in the dam-threatened river and caught in his hands the tiny never-before-seen endangered fish, the “snail darter,” that ultimately swims all the way to the Supreme Court, and wins.

Anne Wickham [Kristen Wiig] — a brilliant citizen environmental advocate in Washington, advising and organizing political contacts in Congress for the Tennesseeans; links the author to the nascent Old Girls Network in Washington and plays Yoda to my stumbling Luke Skywalker; a bit flakey, blond, blue-eyed, paralyzed by polio, she does it all from a wheelchair; has to stop midnight vigilante cement-pouring expeditions (making impromptu ramps for non-accessible sidewalk curbs) when appointed to the State Department.

Hank Hill [Jack Black, a dead ringer] — a chunky, explosive, GPA-challenged law student; from his beer-drinking fish biologist student buddies he heard about the fish and decided to write a term paper on how the federal dam might violate the federal endangered species law; his term paper starts the whole crusade.

Representative Albert Gore [Darrell Hammond] — the young, insecure politician trying to earn his eminent senator father’s respect; he makes sound environmental policy his core issue but—faced with corrupt home state politics and the congressional pork barrel—double-crosses the citizens and undercuts the proven merits of their case; anguished, he excludes his home-state’s darter, the decade’s biggest environmental case, from mention in his book Earth in the Balance, subsequently trying to build a more principled environmental career.

Senator Howard Baker [Jason Alexander] — the powerful presidential hopeful Tennessee politician who pretends to be open-minded about the conflict but works deviously behind the scenes to hide the truth about the dam’s destructive economics (much as he had tried to hide the Nixon Watergate facts in his Senate oversight hearings role); he ultimately engineers a backhanded override of the Supreme Court verdict.

Aubrey "Red" Wagner [Dick Cheney] -- the all-powerful Chairman of the TVA, obsessed with building his last of 68 dams, who behind the scenes engineered an array of hypothetical benefit claim justifications for it, and with his pork allies in Congress trampled a farming community, rational economics, and the law in order to push it to completion.

President Jimmy Carter [Dan Ackroyd] — earnest, anguished, honest guy bamboozled by Washington politics and undercut by his civic and Christian principles, thinking that Washington politicians share his concern about the public interest merits of issues, and that if he turns the other cheek his enemies will regard him as worthy rather than weak; his misconceptions lead to a series of defeats and capitulations, including his decision not to veto the Baker override that dooms the snail darter in its river.

The Author, Zygmunt J. B. Plater [Benedict Cumberbatch] — the young, idealistic, insecure Tennessee environmental law teacher from Up North who realizes that the little fish case requires fulltime crusaders; through a trick gets the fish officially listed in Washington, carries the case up through the courts, getting fired for being “immoderate”; he camps out and lobbies in the capital as a volunteer for two years, winning in the Supreme Court, ultimately losing to Senator Baker’s congressional strategem and President Carter’s anguished capitulation; (he tries and fails to re-block the dam using a Cherokee Indian constitutional claim); has been described by Rush Limbaugh as a “homo-socialist” and by Sean Hannity as “fringe lunatic.”

Learn more about The Snail Darter and the Dam at the Yale University Press website.

The Page 99 Test: The Snail Darter and the Dam.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mary Simses's "The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe"

Mary Simses grew up in Connecticut and spent much of her life in the Northeast, where she attended college and law school. As a child she loved to write stories, design covers for them, and staple them into books. Later, careers in journalism and law took priority and creative writing slipped away, until she enrolled in an evening fiction writing class at a local university and was hooked again. Her short stories have appeared in a number of literary journals. Simses now lives in South Florida with her husband/law partner and their daughter.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe:

When I first started to think about this, I assumed it would be simple. I would go through my list of characters and certain actors would pop into my mind for the parts. Hadn’t I wondered about that, even a little, while I was writing the book? Of course I had. It’s hard not to toy with the idea, just as a diversion, so when it came time to actually sit down and do the real “casting,” I was surprised that it was so difficult.

Maybe it’s because these characters are my creations and, therefore, don’t resemble anyone working in film today, or anyone at all for that matter (any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental!). Or maybe I just get nervous when I imagine what real actors would do with my characters. Perhaps the man who played Roy, for example, wouldn’t have exactly the right mixture of quiet competence and country charm or the woman who played Ellen would make her seem too brittle and not understand her vulnerabilities.

Putting all of that aside, however, I did manage to come up with a list – or an almost list – of actors for the main characters. Here it is:

Ellen – When I created Ellen I think I was channeling the young Katharine Hepburn. I loved it when Hepburn played a character who acted completely confident about everything, even when “on the inside” she was in total chaos. That’s Ellen. So if we could just get Hepburn back....

Ruth, Ellen’s grandmother – I actually thought about casting her a while ago and, without a second’s hesitation, decided on Vanessa Redgrave. Redgrave has that elegance and grace that I see in Ruth. She would just need to brush up her American accent. Another possibility would be Meryl Streep, who, as we know from The Iron Lady, is clearly capable of playing someone older than she is.

Hayden – A younger (and blond, and American) Colin Firth would probably be the ideal Hayden. But as we can’t change his age, nationality, and hair color (well, maybe the hair color) it’s best to look at an alternative, and I have an excellent one: Bradley Cooper. Hayden is a buttoned-down lawyer with political aspirations and he comes from a wealthy political family. I could see Cooper stepping nicely into that role, although he would have to lose his Hangover persona and don a more conservative one.

Roy – Roy is tough because the actor I always think of, for his part, is George Clooney. Unfortunately, he’s about ten or fifteen years too old, but Josh Brolin might be a possibility. Roy is the kind of guy you could see chopping wood in his back yard or reciting poetry under a sky full of stars. If anyone has any suggestions....

Chet – I think Harrison Ford would make a great Chet, although he’s about a decade too young. (Make-up, please!)

Cynthia, Ellen’s Mother –Kristin Scott Thomas is my pick for this role. (Again, I’m casting a Brit! Should we move the story to an English seaside village?) Scott Thomas has a knack for playing no-nonsense, take-charge women and that’s Cynthia.

Paula Victory – I think Catherine O’Hara would be great as Paula. O’Hara has done a number of Christopher Guest films and is known for comedy but it’s sophisticated comedy. Paula is a tough, nosey New Englander who knows everything that’s going on around her. But she also has a warm under-belly. O’Hara could pull that off nicely.

Song to open while credits are rolling by: “It Could Happen to You,” performed by Diana Krall.

The Director – Steven Spielberg. Well, if I’m dreaming, why not?

Learn more about the book and author at Mary Simses's website and follow her on Facebook.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elizabeth L. Silver's "The Execution of Noa P. Singleton"

Elizabeth L. Silver grew up in New Orleans and Dallas and currently lives in Los Angeles. She holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia in England, and a JD from Temple University Beasley School of Law. She has taught ESL in Costa Rica, writing and literature at several universities in Philadelphia, and worked as a research attorney for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

Here Silver shares some thoughts on dreamcasting an adaptation of The Execution of Noa P. Singleton, her first novel:

I love this idea and I’d be lying if I haven’t played around with dream casting in my head a million times, but I’m tentative to list any actors, as I often feel as though the minute a reader knows who may or may not play a role on film or who the author has in mind, then it taints the reading experience. Suddenly a famous face and voice starts to creep into the reader’s head as he or she is reading a passage, and I’d much prefer the reader to experience the novel on its own before envisioning someone specific. That said, there is a particularly famous actress who most people uniformly chose for Marlene Dixon. I won’t say who, but I suspect she’ll become clear to all who read the book fairly quickly.

Learn more about the book and author at Elizabeth L. Silver's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Execution of Noa P. Singleton.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gerry FitzGerald's "Redemption Mountain"

Gerry FitzGerald has been in advertising for nearly thirty years and owns an advertising agency in Springfield, Massachusetts. He holds a master’s in journalism from the Medill School at Northwestern University and is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He lives in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts with his wife, Robin.

Here FitzGerald dreamcasts an adaptation of his new novel, Redemption Mountain:

Redemption Mountain was first published in 2009 as a POD book entitled The Pie Man. Word of mouth recommendations led to a bookstore owner, then to a rep from St. Martin’s Press, and then to the current publisher Henry Holt and Company. Literally everyone who read the book couldn’t resist casting the movie. I still get sporadic emails of praise from far flung places, (even though The Pie Man was taken off the market in October 2011), many containing some expression similar to “Can’t wait for the movie!”, along with a casting recommendation.

The story of Redemption Mountain takes place in the year 2000, in southern West Virginia, in the heart of the coal mining region of Appalachia. Charlie Burden is a handsome, rugged, 48-year old partner in a New York City engineering firm, who goes to McDowell County, WV to take over the construction of a huge coal-fired power plant. In West Virginia, he meets Natty Oakes, a simple woman of the mountains – the wife of an abusive husband and the mother of a precocious 12-year-old boy with Down Syndrome called The Pie Man. The plot revolves around the slowly burgeoning relationship between Charlie and Natty, and the conflict that develops as Charlie’s utility/coal company client pushes ahead with a plan to do a mountaintop removal coal mine on Redemption Mountain, where Natty grew up and her grandparents and mother still live.

For the role of Charlie Burden, readers nearly unanimously voted for George Clooney, and I can’t disagree. He’s the right age and Clooney is also from Kentucky, where mountaintop removal coal mining has left its horrible mark as badly as in West Virginia. Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise came in a distant second and third. Either could play the role beautifully. Russell Crowe has also received some support – surprisingly to me. He could certainly play the role, but he’d probably beat up the director the first day of production. Hugh Jackman is probably a little young, but would make a great Charlie Burden.

Natty Oakes seems to be a much more difficult role to cast. Natty is a petite, 30-year old with dirty blonde hair, whose exquisite beauty is hidden for most of the book behind a façade of no-makeup or jewelry, and a wardrobe of ill-fitting, mostly men’s clothing. With his discerning eye, Charlie sees Natty in a different way from the local men, including her husband, but not until later in the book, when she travels to New York on a church bus trip and visits a Park Avenue salon, is her incredible beauty revealed.

Maybe it’s because the audience for Redemption Mountain is over 40, but the vast majority of reader “votes” were for actresses probably too old for the part. Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner (who is from West Virginia), and Sandra Bullock (much support coming right after the release of her fabulous performance in The Blind Side, where she did play a blond), were the overwhelming favorites. Although also over 30, Reese Witherspoon (from Alabama) would be great, as would Naomi Watts and Nicole Kidman, two Aussies who can play any role, any age. While there are literally dozens of fine actresses in their early 30’s who could fit the role, my own choices would be either, Ellen Page (only in her late 20’s but so good in Juno), Natalie Portman (perfect!), or Emily Blunt who I just recently watched in Looper in which she was terrific.

For director, give me Steven Spielberg or Martin Scorsese to ensure a huge budget, and John Williams or Rachel Portman for a beautiful score.

Learn more about the book and author at Gerry FitzGerald's website.

Writers Read: Gerry FitzGerald.

The Page 69 Test: Redemption Mountain.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stephen Kiernan's "The Curiosity"

Stephen Kiernan's new novel is The Curiosity.

Here the author dreamcasts a big-screen adaptation of the book:

I have spent months casting The Curiosity in my imagination, ever since 20th Century Fox purchased the film rights to the novel.

Do I have any say in who is cast? No. Do I know anything about how a movie is made? No. Do either of these facts prevent me from picking the actors I want? Of course not.

Erastus Carthage is a brilliant cell scientist, ambitious and narcissistic, with major unresolved father issues. Who else but Ben Kingsley? Not the Gandhi version of him, but the character in Searching for Bobby Fisher – smart and merciless.

Kate Philo is a scientist with a conscience, which gets her into trouble but also makes her the novel’s moral centerpiece. She is clueless about her attractiveness, is fascinated by facts, and risks everything to protect a man she loves. Did you ever see Rachel McAdams’ audition tape for The Notebook? Huge talent, even when she’s just listening.

David Gerber is a former NASA operations guru, math savant and Deadhead. His intelligence appears effortless, but in fact he pulls frequent all-nighters. Give me Elijah Wood, with long hair.

Graham Billings is a soft-spoken lab rat who helps solve the book’s biggest scientific problem. The role simply must go to Clark Gregg, who was memorable as the mild Agent Coulson in the Iron Man and Avengers movies.

As for Jeremiah Rice, the judge from 1906 revived in today’s chaotic world? The reserved but charismatic leading man?

I simply don’t know. Who would you suggest?

Learn more about the book and author at Stephen Kiernan's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue

Courtney Angela Brkic's "The First Rule of Swimming"

Courtney Angela Brkic is the author of the new novel The First Rule of Swimming, Stillness: and Other Stories and The Stone Fields. Her work has also appeared in Zoetrope, The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, Harpers & Queen, the Utne Reader, TriQuarterly Review, The Alaska Review and National Geographic, among others. Brkic has been the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Whiting Writer’s Award. Stillness was named a Barnes and Noble Discover pick, a 2003 Chicago Tribune "Best Book" and a 2003 New York Times "Notable Book". The Stone Fields was shortlisted for a Freedom of Expression Award by the Index on Censorship. She lives outside of Washington, DC, with her husband and son, and teaches in the MFA program at George Mason University.

Here she dreamcasts an adaptation of The First Rule of Swimming:

This was tremendously fun to think about, though I doubt that The First Rule of Swimming would be easy to adapt (the plot is a bit too twisty and the book cuts back and forth through so many different time periods). That said, my characters are like children I’ve single-handedly created, and I’m more than a bit possessive. I have definite ideas about the “types” of actors I see in the roles.

By way of background, the novel is about three generations of siblings in a single Croatian family. Luka and Vinka fight in the Second World War, Marin and Ana must contend with Communism, and Magdalena and Jadranka come of age during the 1991-1995 war. They’re from Rosmarina, a small, remote island in the southern Adriatic Sea.

Most of the plot unfolds in the present, around Magdalena, a Rosmarina schoolteacher who can’t bear the idea of leaving the island, and her younger sister, Jadranka, an artist who can’t wait to leave. I’d love to see someone like Franka Potente play Magdalena (i.e, someone with a lot of character and a certain amount of edge). For Jadranka, Lauren Ambrose (whom I loved in Six Feet Under). And maybe Branka Katic (from Big Love) in the role of Katarina, their cousin. Magdalena’s love interest is Damir, a journalist, and I think Goran Visnjic (naturally! He’s Dalmatian!) would be great in that role.

Moving up a generation, the sisters’ uncle, Marin, was sentenced as a young man to hard labor on Goli Otok, a gulag in Communist Yugoslavia. I could see Andrew Garfield in this role, with Robert De Niro playing an older, wiser Marin, after his immigration to New York City (with the lovely Isabella Rosselini as Luz, his wife). Marin’s sister, Ana, is a pivotal character in the book. She’s a complex person who has lived a difficult life, and in a parallel universe I could see Elizabeth Taylor playing her at different stages of her life. Coming back to reality, I like the idea of Mila Kunis and Stockard Channing playing Ana The Younger and Ana The Older.

And as far as Luka, the patriarch of the Moric family, I could see someone like Adam Scott (whom I first saw in Tell Me You Love Me) playing him as a young man, but am drawing a blank for the elderly Luka. Probably because he is the character closest to my heart.

Finally, the island of Rosmarina is very much a character in the book, as well. It’s fictional, a composite of a few different Croatian islands I’ve been lucky enough to visit over the years. I’d want to shoot the film on location (naturally…and, see how I’ve already decided to direct the film, in addition to my role as casting agent?) in a few of those places: Lastovo, Vis, Hvar and Korcula.

Visit Courtney Angela Brkic's website and learn more about The First Rule of Swimming.

Writers Read: Courtney Angela Brkic.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ben Downing's "Queen Bee of Tuscany"

Ben Downing specializes in 19th- and 20th-century British social life and literature, with a particular emphasis on travel writing. He has written essays, articles, and reviews on figures such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Duff Cooper, Robert Byron, Anthony Powell, Peter Fleming, Wilfred Thesiger, and Patrick Leigh Fermor.

Downing also writes poetry. His collection The Calligraphy Shop appeared in 2003, and he continues to publish poems in The Atlantic, The New Criterion, The Yale Review, and elsewhere.

Since 1993 he has worked at Parnassus: Poetry in Review, of which he is now the co-editor. He has taught literary seminars and workshops at Columbia, Bryn Mawr, and the 92nd St. Y, and he currently teaches a small private class, known as The English Salon, for advanced non-native speakers of English. He lives in New York City.

Here Downing dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross:

Queen Bee of Tuscany: The Redoubtable Janet Ross is a biography of a remarkable Englishwoman who grew up among the likes of Dickens and Thackeray and went on to spend most of her life in Tuscany, where she farmed, wrote, entertained, and became the acknowledged doyenne of what was then known as the Anglo-Florentine colony.

Given that it's a cradle-to-grave bio, and that Janet Ross lived to the ripe age of eighty-five, I've had a tough time envisioning a particular actress in the role. But one that I can see embodying her in her prime is the marvelous Rebecca Hall, whose recent performance in Tom Stoppard's adaptation of Parade's End really knocked my socks off. Like Sylvia Tietjens, Janet had a very sharp tongue, and I think Hall would nicely capture her at her most withering. But Janet was also smart, funny, erudite, witty, and intermittently kind and soulful, and these qualities too would be caught by Hall—or so I imagine.

My book also has a huge supporting cast. While I haven't allowed myself to daydream about many of them, I must say that I'd dearly love to see the role of Lotteringo della Stufa, a Florentine marchese who was one of Janet's closest friends, played by the peerless Marcello Mastroianni. Magari fosse vero, as the Italians say—if only it were true!

Learn more about the book and author at Ben Downing's website.

The Page 99 Test: Queen Bee of Tuscany.

--Marshal Zeringue

Andrew C. Isenberg's "Wyatt Earp: A Vigilante Life"

Andrew C. Isenberg is the author of Mining California: An Ecological History and The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920 and the editor of The Nature of Cities: Culture, Landscape, and Urban Space. He is a historian at Temple University and lives in Penn Valley, PA.

Here Isenberg dreamcasts an adaptation of his new book, Wyatt Earp: A Vigilante Life:

In almost all Wyatt Earp films, Earp is portrayed as a tight-lipped, duty-bound lawman. Both Kurt Russell and Kevin Costner played him that way in the early 1990s. Their portrayals recall the ways Henry Fonda and Burt Lancaster played the role in the 1940s and 1950s.

This is exactly how Earp wanted himself portrayed. In the last decades of his life, he frequented Hollywood studios, where he befriended early silent-film Western stars. Earp very much wanted one of those actors, his friend William S. Hart, to play him on screen. Hart, the biggest Western film star of the 1910s and early 1920s, specialized in taciturn characters who were always on the side of justice.

In Wyatt Earp: A Vigilante Life, I offer a very different interpretation of Earp. He was often on the run and always reinventing himself. He spent most of his life not as a lawman but as a gambler and a con man. He sold rocks painted yellow as gold bricks to unsuspecting buyers. He was involved in fixing a heavyweight championship prizefight in 1896. As late as 1911, at age 63, he was arrested by the Los Angeles Police bunco squad for running a crooked card game. Toward the end of his life, frustrated by the negative publicity his career as a gambler had earned him, he went to Hollywood. He began dictating his memoirs, reinventing himself again by editing out his missteps and modeling himself on the prototypical Hart character. The fact that we remember Earp as a lawman and not as a con man was his most successful and enduring confidence game.

He was, in a lot of ways, a type of Don Draper character, which is why Jon Hamm could step into the role, and play him as a complex figure for whom the role of forthright lawman was a facade. Matt Damon, who played a con man in The Talented Mr. Ripley, could also play the role well. (Like Hamm, Damon has the physical presence to play the role--the actor who plays Earp has to be believable as both a gunfighter and a gambler.) Leonardo DiCaprio has likewise played a con man (Catch Me If You Can) and a man who has reinvented himself (The Great Gatsby).

DiCaprio is also well suited to what is usually the plum role in a Wyatt Earp film: the part of Earp’s friend Doc Holliday. Val Kilmer set the standard for the part in 1993’s Tombstone, capturing the character’s androgynous combination of violence and frailty, world-weariness and loyalty to Earp. Walton Goggins from Django Unchained, would be ideal. Ben Foster  played a Doc Holliday type convincingly in 3:10 to Yuma.

Gene Hackman played Earp’s father, Nicholas, in 1994’s Wyatt Earp, as a stern patriarch. That film, with Costner as Wyatt Earp, overlaid Shakespeare’s Henry IV on Earp: he was a wayward youth, a disappointment to his father, but he righted himself to become a responsible adult. But the real Earp never righted himself, and his father was not a humorless, law-abiding patriarch but rather a blustery teller of tall tales: John Goodman.

Learn more about Wyatt Earp at the Hill and Wang website.

The Page 99 Test: Wyatt Earp: A Vigilante Life.

--Marshal Zeringue