Sunday, July 12, 2015

Harry MacLean's "The Joy of Killing"

Harry MacLean is a lawyer and writer based in Denver, Colorado. He is the author of In Broad Daylight, which won an Edgar Award for Best True Crime and was a New York Times bestseller for twelve weeks; his second book, Once Upon A Time: A True Story of Memory, Murder, and the Law was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and his third book, The Past Is Never Dead: The Trial of James Ford Seale and Mississippi's Search for Redemption was shortlisted for the William Saroyan Award, given by Stanford University.

Here MacLean dreamcasts an adaptation of his new novel, The Joy of Killing:
While writing The Joy of Killing, my first work of fiction, I couldn’t help but watch some scenes play out on a screen. The fifty-five year-old narrator drives the story of reconstructing his life of trauma and violence, and I thought first of Sam Elliot, but I think he’s done a few too many pick-up ads. William Hurt would be perfect; he’s a little over 55, but he could well manage, both visually and vocally, the narrator’s uncertainty about the truth of his life along with his determination to sort it out. Ed Norton comes in second.

For the female lead, Amy Adams comes to mind, but I think it might be more intriguing if it was a woman the viewer had never seen before.

Only two living directors could handle this movie: David Lynch and Tim Burton. Of these, Lynch would be the best.
Visit Harry MacLean's website.

--Marshal Zeringue