The Night Listener

[redhotinnyc2]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 4:49pm

I read this book when it first came out. Now I'm seeing the ads for the movie and going "What the F**k?!" The book is not a thriller. The movie is being marketed as a psychological thriller and it just doesn't jibe with what I remember reading.
Any thoughts?

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 4:51pm

My thoughts are that it's the worst novel ever written by Armistead Maupin.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 4:56pm

My high school theatre teacher gave me Tales of the City when I started college. I loved all six books. She told me to avoid Night Listener. I miss the Barbary Lane crew.

[Kringas]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 4:57pm

I enjoyed the novel (mainly for its tweaks and nods to the Barbary Lane canon), but I'm not sure it'll make a movie that's all that interesting. Plus I can't freaking stand Robin Williams.

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:00pm

I am with Namo on this one. Anything they can do to make the sorce material interesting I say go for it.
When I heard "Robin Williams to star in Night Listenter" I thought great, one of the worst actors in an adaptation one of the worst books, no thanks. (Although I love Toni Collete and what I have seen of Sandra Oh.)

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:02pm

Ohhh, Night Listener has some of the Barbary Lane characters?

[SueleenGay]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:03pm

Just one. Sandra Oh plays Dee Dee's daughter, Anna.

Updated On: 7/26/06 at 05:03 PM

[redhotinnyc2]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:03pm

Yeah, I have mixed feelings about Robin Williams, but how can you NOT go see a movie with Toni Colette? She is amazing in everything she does.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:04pm

The twins are in Night Listener. And there was a reference to Ned the horticulturist in Maybe the Moon, which could make a good movie.

Also, Maupin has promised a non-sequel called "A Day in The Life of Michael Tolliver."

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:05pm

Ah. Well, that's interesting. I guess Anna would be about my age if Dee Dee and D'or left for Jonestown right after the babies were born. I think I need to reread the series.

Updated On: 7/26/06 at 05:05 PM

[Kringas]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:06pm

Total threadjack, but one of the things I really loved about Barbary Lane series was that the characters were allowed to grow and change, despite the fact that several of them ended up a lot less likeable than they were when the series started.

For years I've heard that Showtime was going to make Babycakes into a film, but I haven't heard anything new about that in a while.

Also, JerseyGirl, the main character in Night Listener has a radio series he's written that is very similar to the Barbary Lane tales.

Updated On: 7/26/06 at 05:06 PM

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:11pm

Kringas, that was one of my favorite features of the books, too. When I was given the books, my friend said, "Careful, they are like chocolate."

The movies run on Logo all the time.

[Kringas]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:19pm

The books really are addictive. I read the entire series for the first time over the course of a few weeks.

[DayDreamer]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:20pm

Wow... I would love to find out, after all these year, what Michael has been up to.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:21pm

I had them all in paperback and ended up getting the hardback books with three in each book. I think they were called 28 Barbary Lane and Back to Barbary Lane.

I would love for Armistead to write another book about those characters.

Updated On: 7/26/06 at 05:21 PM

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 5:25pm

I wonder if the recent JT LeRoy stuff had an impact on the film version at all...I haven't read the book, been meaning to.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 6:51pm

I think the movie's been in the can a while.

The Night Listener novel is really not very good. I got the sense that Maupin hadn't chewed the cud of his real-life experience very well.

I just kept thinking, "Yes, yes, I'm sure this was interesting when it was happening to you." But then the narrator did radio plays, as Kringas pointed out, and I kept wondering what universe this was taking place in.

Rosie O'Donnell's Find Me is, I was surprised to discover, much better written.

Maupin has insisted that fans should not expect "A Day in The Life..." to be a sequel or to have any expectations of being caught up on everybody we came to know and love through the Tales series.

Updated On: 7/26/06 at 06:51 PM

[cheezedoodle]

Posted: 7/26/06 at 7:05pm

I believe the Night Listener novel was a direct action to the JT Leroy incident as Maupin was one of the "celebrity" authors approached to fill in and help cover up Leroy's non exsistance.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/27/06 at 10:06am

No, The Night Listener was published in 2000. And given the glacial pace at which Maupin writes (what with Maybe the Moon having been published eight years before), it had to have been well underway a good length of time before that.

Sarah, the first "JT Leroy" novel was also published in 2000.

Maupin's story was actually about somebody almost exactly as portrayed in the novel.

[Calvin]

Posted: 7/27/06 at 10:37am

I had to read an advance copy of The Night Listener in one day right before it was released, and I liked it -- but I was influenced because I had to interview Armistead Maupin about it the next day for my job at the time. Not once during my reading of it, however, did I think, "This would make a great movie." And I don't want to see Robin Williams in the scene with the trucker.

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 7/27/06 at 11:38am

in any event, the JT LeRoy parallels will make it a more interesting movie and novel for me.

[cturtle]

Posted: 7/27/06 at 1:30pm

i remember enjoying the book. and i also remember it being suspenseful. so i understand the metamorphosis into thriller. but ... i'm just not sure about a movie version. we'll see ...

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 7/27/06 at 4:47pm

But the parallels aren't with JT Leroy but with Anthony Godby Johnson. A Google-able name that will be a spoiler for those who haven't read the novel or are planning to see the movie.

[TxTwoStep]

Posted: 7/27/06 at 4:57pm

uuummmmm, doesn't it take two of something to be parallel? The Godby Johnson case (as Maupin's inspiration) and the JT LeRoy case? Wikipedia also lists a "Kaycee Nicole" case which was new to me.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 7/27/06 at 5:00pm

I Googled the name because I had not read the book. It must tbe very similar to Rosie's story.