I just finished Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children.” She is a compelling storyteller and draws vivid, complex, and believable characters.
There is some “what would this look like photographed?” language, but it rarely gets overly descriptive. The writing is mostly in service of the storytelling and you can read the whole thing in a couple if days if you get hooked and stay up late like I did. (It has a post-The Secret History vibe in a smart people/page turner kind of way.)
There are, however, many parts worth thinking about photographically. If you need some inspiration here they are:
- Murray flipped a slab of steak with his greasy tongs. Fat spattered on the front of his shirt. He felt this in itself was manly.
- She stood, when he approached, and smiled her big, goofy smile. “Did you ever think, Daddy, that I’d come from my office to meet you for lunch? Did you ever think I’d have a job?”
- They were quick about it, grasping, opening, panting, both of them slightly off their heads [...] at first he didn’t realize that David was in the room, in the stall, was dragging them both by their skin, viciously, out into the bathroom, their trousers flapping open, dicks out, and he was pummeling at Julius…
- [...] but she remembered him, too, as saturnine in his plumpness, with eyes that, behind their smeary glasses, seemed to peer all too intently [...]
It looks like Noah Baumbach is all over it. (Maybe Harris Savides will DP… if not, I hereby nominate myself!)