Previously
Tuesday, February 11, 2003Other Stuff I've actually had a few emails demanding an update. It seems some of you have missed the injurious ramblings of my Lately log. Well here you are then. You asked for it. I'm not well known for my honesty but if I have to find a reason for the pause in these instalments it's because I just knew I would have to talk about progress on The Tooth Fairy movie. And I didn't want to. It feels like talking about an emotional relationship that at first beautiful and luminous somehow became a train wreck. So more about that later, but first some more upbeat stuff. Well The Facts Of Life is out in the UK and will available in the US in June from Atria books, the new imprint at Simon and Schuster. Early reviews have been stunning and SFX magazine featured an interview and beautiful glossy photo of a dangerously good-lookin' bloke who might be me (look, if you want modesty read someone else's column). The photo was taken at Leicester's fine Victorian pumping station on a day so cold my snot froze. I was simultaneously interviewed by SFX editor Dave Golder, his own face tinctured orc-azure such was the chill. In fact the cold made us drunk and at one point we were laughing like drains at nothing more humorous than a brass flange on a bit of Victorian plumbing. Fortunately he's a professional that Dave Golder and he made the interview present me as sensible as I've ever seen. Got some great quotes for the US edition (or rather the fabulous Tracy Behar did - Tracy is my editor now at S&S). Isabel Allende wrote "This is the kind of book I love to read! It's an epic saga about family, love, war, and magic. Joyce's characters are memorable. They remind me of some of my own weird relatives. I have not been so charmed by a novel in a long time." And Alev Lytle Croutier wrote "Reading The Facts of Life is like stepping into a fictional dream that has resonances, in turn, of Dickens, John Irving, Ian McEwan, Robertson Davies, and Paul Auster. What begins with a quiet pace suddenly sweeps one up in an eddy of quirks. The picaresque family novel brings an unexpected revelation at every corner, and what seems morbid and profane is transformed into beautiful and nearly divine. What a delicious discovery!" I'm thrilled that these two extraordinary and accomplished women found something in the novel. Meanwhile over Christmas I went to the optician. I was tested by a man who, early in the chart-reading failure said, 'Tell me you're not actually driving at the moment.' So now I've got specs for driving and distance viewing. I think the thing that prompted me to go was an incident just before Christmas with a once famous model, who came into a booklaunch party with two lovely Pekingnese dogs at her feet. Being a friend to all canines (and slightly hammered on free wine) I went immediately to stroke them only to find pretty quickly that they were actually a pair of ridiculously large furry boots she was wearing. I was somewhat embarrassed. Had to make out I'd lost a contact lens on the floor near her but then she insisted on helping me search. I don't know anything about contact lenses and she kept asking me what kind it was. I mean, how many kinds are there to lie about? So I got my specs to avoid further incidents of this nature. I didn't much like them at first but I've come to appreciate the slightly academic and owlish cachet they lend. At least they make me look like the sort of bloke who wouldn't go stroking the boots of a once-famous model at booklaunch parties, and now, with my new twenty-twenty vision, neither will I be one. Got to tell you about Joe now, my four year old. He said, 'Dad do you know why we can bend our knees? It's so we can sit down and other stuff.' Mostly I love the >and other stuff<. Oh all right. You think I'm just putting off talking about The Tooth Fairy don't you? An author in flight, that's what it is, huh? Okay, let's do it. Those who don't know The Tooth Fairy story or aren't interested in the gruesome details should skip the next bit. Those who are interested in where the project is going (mostly you folk who emailed me demanding an update!) read on. Anyway, I've delivered my drafts of how I see it and I have to say it's a pretty far stretch from how the movie's producers see it. This is not uncommon in the film world, where authors are hired pretty much like you would hire an electrician or plumber, out of the Yellow Pages so to speak. And I'm grateful to Radar that they gave me the opportunity to fire a couple of drafts at them. Fact is we just reached an impasse, and I finally had to suggest they get another writer to go to the next level of what they want to do with the story. I made a great deal of changes myself that a purist wouldn't tolerate. I had no problem with transporting the story to the US (with Pittsburgh in mind) and in updating it from it's 1970's context to a contemporary setting. I changed the scouting scenes, because well, scouting and woggles and neckerchiefs and all that hokum don't seem to be of interest to today's early teenagers, who seem to be more enamoured of crack cocaine and trousers where the hanging crotch chafes the ankles. So all that went and I was fine with it. Some of my fave sub-plot supporting characters like Linda had to go, but where the studio and I lost sight of each other was when they asked to change The Tooth Fairy into a succubus, whatever a succubus is. (Actually I know what one is but basically they collect semen rather than teeth, and suddenly the Tooth Fairy metaphor of loss and gain wasn't quite working for me. Wonder why.) The studio were also puzzled by the idea of Sam being ambivalent about the TF. They were troubled by the idea that sometimes he actually loves the TF, and they were more interested in making the TF a decisive antagonist, maybe like Freddy Kreuger or something of that order. Further, the Nightmare Interceptor, which probably delivers the coolest ending I've ever written in my life (all right, I've written some bad endings) was something they just didn't >get< So even though we were maintaining good relations, it became very clear that we were miles apart. I wish them well in taking on the project further and I hope the film gets made. It has been a compelling experience and I'm grateful to them for giving me the chance to at least present it one way, even if that's not the way things are going to happen. After all, the studio >owns< the rights now, not me. I mean I'd make the movie myself but I'm not sure where I'd put my hands on ten million dollars before Thursday. Other matters. At the close of last year I was very proud to be awarded the French Grand Prix De L'Imaginaire for my novella Leningrad Nights. This award was accepted for me in Nantes by my breathtakingly beautiful translator Michelle Charrier. I don't care what she said on my behalf, but I know it will have been parfait, and delivered in that sensational Gallic style possessed by every French person except Chirac and the vile Le Pen. And anyway isn't an award in translation really an accolade for the translator? I just returned from New York where in addition to hanging out with some hip and beautiful friends (gulp! aren't all my friends hip and baeautiful? yes! hurrah! ) I got to teach a very famous Hollywood actress - whose name I will not drop - the Spanish Bullfighter Toast taught to me by Joe Haldeman. You see how much suffering there is in being a writer? Especially when I pretty much had to grudgingly go along with teaching the same toast to her equally beautiful equally famous Hollywood actor boyfriend (more non-dropping of names - this is how rumours don't get started isn't it?). But I also found a great new bar in Tribeka on Hudson St called Antarctica, run and staffed by very fine folk. So there you are. I'm resolved to get back to some regular updates here now that I've got a few things off my chest. Now I'm going to bend my knees a bit and find out what Joe is on about with this 'other stuff'. Graham Joyce can be contacted by emailing graham@grahamjoyce.net | |
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