First, I was reading a profile of author Mary Gaitskill last night in Poets & Writers magazine, and I read that her stories and novels tend to be dark and sometimes a bit lurid. The article describes her first story collection, Bad Behavior, as having “caused a sensation in 1988 with its finely wrought portraits of Dexedrine addicts, masochists, call girls, and johns.” I’m all for supporting those things that cause sensations because it’s a helpful part of the process of exterminating conservative thinking. Also, the writing tends to be pretty good (paging Bret Easton Ellis). Turns out that one of the stories in that collection was made into the film Secretary, with James Spader and Maggie Gyllenhaal (in her first starring role). Never saw the movie, but sort of wanted to - and am even more interested now, though it will have to wait until I get around to reading the story first. (Unfortunately, no link to the story on the PW website.)
Second, for some reason I was thinking about the novel House Of Leaves at work tonight and I looked it up on Wikipedia, just to see what the venerable knowledge base had on what is easily one of the strangest - and yet oddly satisfying - novels I have ever read. Among other things, I found out that the novel’s author, Mark Danielewski, has a sister called Annie Decatur Danielewski, a singer who goes by the stage name of Poe - who had a hit single in the 90s called “Hello.” I loved that song. Pretty random. Pretty cool. Small world, yo.
Third, though there was no link to the Mary Gaitskill profile, the PW website did have a Postcard piece on novelist Tom Perrotta that talks about, among other things, why the main male character in Little Children has a different name in the movie than he does in the novel. There’s also a bit of information on the next film that will be adapted from one of his novels, and which will be directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, who helmed Little Miss Sunshine.
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