its Acorn streaming platform is a haven for Christie-inspired content. Today, AMC owns a majority stake in Agatha Christie Ltd. The British author’s polished puzzles made her the world’s bestselling novelist, and adaptations of her work mirror the evolution of popular media: theater, radio, silent film, international TV, video games. This month: Kenneth Branagh’s latest stab at the Agatha Christie universe, “Death on the Nile.”Ī Bollywood thriller with dancing suspects, a giallo with huge-haired corpses in deep freeze, a porno with booby-trapped sex toys: Adaptations of Agatha Christie have gone just about everywhere. Roughly every month, Bonnie Johnson will be taking a critical look at the latest screen adaptations of books - from beloved classics to novels you’d otherwise never have known.
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And three modern young women get caught up in a delightfully sexy, messy relationship. So far, so Gothic.įast forward to our modern times: The school has become the set for a movie based on the Brookhant’s story. Over the next few years, there are a few more deaths, and the school gets a reputation for being both cursed and haunted. One afternoon, whilst enjoying a romantic tryst in the orchard, dear Clara and Flo are attached and killed by swarming yellowjackets. So taken with this book, our girls create a secret club: The Plain Bad Heroine Society. (In real life, MacLane’s memoir sold 100,000 copies in its first month in print.) Or, more specifically, her book The Story of Mary MacLane, a sensual, self-aware memoir that highlights Mary’s attraction to women. They are completely infatuated with each other and with the author Mary MacLane. The story begins in 1902 when we meet Clara and Flo, students at Brookhants School for Girls. Here’s the pitch: A sapphic Gothic haunted house novel featuring a story within a story within a story, black-and-white illustrations done in Gilded Age-style, and portentous yellowjackets that emerge as recurring characters in the story. In addition, the NEA offers a gift than cannot be quantified. The grant will allow me to take formal leave from the university, dedicating myself to my writing without stress. While I have always been good about "stealing" time, stolen time is not really quality time. This NEA grant is the gift of time and the gift of quiet. Now, as I work on my fourth, I shoulder the responsibilities of being a senior faculty member. As I wrote my third novel, I was working toward tenure - attending faculty meetings, writing syllabi, etc. I spent all my time working on applications, and cobbling together enough classroom experience. When I wrote my second novel, I was desperately trying to find a full time teaching position. Although I am working on my fourth novel, my efforts to carve out time to create have not become less intense than when I wrote my first novel hunched over a small desk wedged into my closet. Although I am sure that I am not unique in saying that the NEA grant will allow me to take time away from my job in order to dedicate myself fully to my writing, this does not make this gift any less significant to me and my work. And my entrails went tumbling down, and my blood went rising to my head, and I sweated, before I moved.) (For our eyes have clung too long, she in the same pensive attitude of judging the dolls behind the counter, behind the glass, but her eyes fastened to mine as mine are to hers – as if we knew each other. Though there are seven girls between us, I know, she knows, she will come to me and have me wait on her. Instantly, I am terrified, because I know she knows I am terrified and that I love her. I see her the same instant she sees me, and instantly, I love her. Notes presented in the right margin were made by Highsmith upon revisiting her notebooks at a later date, accompanied by explanatory notes from her longtime editor, Anna von Planta. The draft is included in the newly released book, Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks, 1941 – 1995, published by Liveright Publishing, which has made it available here. It would later be expanded and significantly reworked before being published as the novel The Price of Salt, later titled Carol. This draft of “The Bloomingdale Story” was written by Patricia Highsmith in 1948. That is not to say that Hades is blameless he isn’t. Moreover, when she is upset with him, she lashes out rather than communicate how she is feeling. Persephone is insecure in the relationship, constantly questioning Hades’ commitment to her and rarely giving him the benefit of the doubt. All it takes is someone making an offhand comment about Hades, and before you know it, she is beginning to have second thoughts about their relationship and doubting his feelings for her.Īnd that brings me to my next gripe: Hades and Persephone’s relationship. She is also too easily manipulated by others. One minute she is happy and in love with Hades, and the next, she is angry and doing something to spite him. Not to mention, she is extremely mercurial – her moods can change at the drop of a hat. She is childish, vindictive, jealous, obstinate, and insecure. In the previous book, she was a trifle aggravating, but in this book, she has morphed into someone who is practically insufferable. So, I persevered – just barely.Ī Touch of Ruin’s greatest flaw is its protagonist, Persephone. I desperately wanted to shelve the book at multiple points throughout the story, but as a book reviewer, I knew that I had to see it through to the end. A Touch of Darkness was such an enjoyable read, but A Touch of Ruin was an exercise in willpower. Wow, what an entirely disappointing sequel. TLDR: A dissatisfying follow-up to A Touch of Darkness featuring an insufferable lead and a lackadaisical plot. |