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Nick and Jake

TheOldMole Jun 23 2009 10:13 AM

The news from here -- and this has all happened so fast it made my head spin. My brother Jon and I wrote a novel last year called Nick and Jake, a comedy about the McCarthy and the CIA overthrow of the Mossadegh government, featuring the middle aged Nick Carraway (The Great Gatsby) and Jake Barnes (The Sun Also Rises). We hadn't been able to find a publisher for it, although people had loved it, in large part because of its format – it’s an epistolary novel, and we didn’t want to change that, because we strongly believed it was the right format – we needed all the voices an epistolary novel gave us. We’d started thinking about sending it around to some small presses, which I wasn't very enthusiastic about. Then I got the idea -- publishers have been leery of an epistolary, but on the Internet, that's how most people read. Email, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, forums like Crane Pool -- why not serialize it on the Internet? We could do it as a blog, and since Jon and I are both artists, we could do visual stuff as well as text. And we could do a podcast -- an audio version. So I went from there to thinking that if we could get a name attached to the podcast, we might be able to really promote it. Jon lives in Santa Fe, where he’s well connected, so I started pushing him to ask some of the people he knows – and with a little arm twisting, he agreed – and then really moved forward. The result? Alan Arkin playing Jake, Tom Conti playing Nick, Ali McGraw playing Christine Jorgensen, former ambassador Joe Wilson playing Allen Dulles, Valerie Plame playing Claire Boothe Luce (she’s not actually in the novel, but I’m writing her in as a part for Valerie). And it came together within a couple of weeks! Next week, Jon is going to flying over to London to record Tom Conti's part -- and his wife, Kara Wilson, also an actress, playing Lady Brett Ashley -- then to Paris, where he'll record our friend the actor/director Pascal Aubier playing Maurice Chevalier, and other French actors that Pascal will pull together to play Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Marcel Camus, jazz critic Francis Paudras, and Francoise Sagan. So it's really happening! And I am determined to make it succeed. All my life I've done good work, and then totally fucked up by doing a miserable job of marketing and promotion. I'm trying to do my homework and make sure that doesn't happen this time.

Edgy DC Jun 23 2009 10:19 AM

I really liked what I had read before. Congratulations. A really well conceived work --- equally well realized from what I had read. That's great. Vallerie Plame? Really?

Rockin' Doc Jun 23 2009 11:02 AM

Awesome news. I'm glad that things are coming together so well for you and your brother. I look forward to seeing the finished product when it hits the internet (or hopefully is published).

John Cougar Lunchbucket Jun 23 2009 12:10 PM

wtg, Mole. I'd say getting the first part right is difficult thing. Hire a publicist for the rest!

themetfairy Jun 23 2009 12:18 PM

Very cool Mole! I loved the story - I can't wait to hear it performed :)

Benjamin Grimm Jun 23 2009 01:07 PM

That's really terrific! Congratulations, and good luck!

TheOldMole Jul 03 2009 10:21 AM

Finished taping Tom Conti. Now on to Paris.

themetfairy Jul 03 2009 10:42 AM

Very cool!

Edgy DC Jul 11 2009 02:11 PM

Had you tried to get Sam Waterston to reprise his film role of Nick Carraway?

TheOldMole Jul 12 2009 02:26 PM

We basically went with people we knew, or rather people my brother knows.

TheOldMole Sep 02 2009 08:58 AM Re: Nick and Jake

Dave Grusin will write a "Nick and Jake" theme.

themetfairy Sep 02 2009 08:59 AM Re: Nick and Jake

Very cool!