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EXCLUSIVE: It has been some week for Brooklyn-based author Jennifer Egan. Her novel A Visit From The Goon Squad won the Pulitzer Prize, and she cited the HBO series The Sopranos as her inspiration. Now, Egan has closed a deal with HBO to develop her sprawling tale into a TV series. Groundswell’s Michael London will be executive producer and Jocelyn Hayes Simpson will be co-exec producer. Egan will be a consultant. The network hasn’t yet set a writer to draft the series pilot, but it will happen quickly, I’m told.
The book was published last summer by Knopf and slowly built a head of steam. It focuses on a coterie of characters first introduced as they orbit the world of punk rock in 1980s San Francisco. Their lives are explored for the next 30 or so years, with interlocking stories that deal as much with changes in the lives of the characters as it does changes in technology. Egan uses unorthodox methods to tell her tale. One chapter is about how, in 2015, babies use touch screens to download music they like. Another chapter is written as a PowerPoint presentation by a 12-year-old girl, and the subject is famous rock songs that have pauses in the middle. During the chapter, the teen reveals much about her life. The Pulitzer committee described the book as “an inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed.”
The deal was in the works before Egan won the Pulitzer, but her reps at ICM just closed with HBO. It’s the first big TV project for Groundswell.
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It’s my opinion that HBO needs new executives to run the joint. Michael Lombardo, Richard Plepler and Sue Naegle just aren’t as creative as Chris Albrecht was.
The novel is fascinating, but very hard to adapt. It could easily be a mess of a TV show.
Sounds like a winner for all involved!
I agree with Jim, HBO has lost their sizzle. The Sopranos, Sex and The City, Band of Brothers were truly goundbreaking shows that worked on many levels. The recent stuff, Boardwalk, Tru Blood, Pacific etc. just seems like they’re throwing money around and calling it quality. But it’s basically the same crap you can get on network with better production values and the ability to say fuck here and there.
Oh, interesting! This could turn out really well if they do it right, and given HBO’s track record I’d be optimistic about that (if they don’t though, I could see it being very confusing).
Will be interesting to see how they handle the many varying POVs. I guess they’ll center it around Sasha and Bennie more coherently for a televised version.
Remember when HBO snapped up the rights to David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” and then proceeded to sit on the project forever? Now they’re buying another complex bit of literary prestige to burnish their brand and egos. Who knows it could be good, and I loved the book, but I actually think the sprawl and range of characters in Infinite Jest would still make riper material to develop into a series.
How has HBO lost their sizzle? If anything, they’ve successfully REBOOTED themselves with the new crop of shows they have coming out. They got my Mom into vampires for fucks sake! I think you’re just an HBO hater. There’s a reason they keep attracting top Hollywood talent to their projects–because they do a good fucking job.
I am really looking forward to this! GOON SQUAD is superb and I’m thrilled it won the Pulitzer. My only misgiving in having it turned into a series is the loss of language; Egan writes great dialog, but even more mesmerizing is her descriptive writing. I hope some voiceovers are employed.
Maybe now the people who have been sitting on the rights to THE KEEP (another great by Egan) will get a move on making the movie.
Everytime Jennifer Egan gets a new book published she seems to break the boundaries of what and how things can be done and written.
The Pullitzer wasnt a coincidence!!
Just finished the novel. Inventive, heartbreaking and…somehow a valentine to us forty and fifty somethings who took the freedom our older brothers and sisters won for us and rode it hard and put it up wet. It didn’t hurt that I lived in both sf and nyc …and everywhere else it sometimes seems..during those years. Thanks ms. Egan for the great ride.