Latest news with #TheLuminaries
Sydney Morning Herald
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
The ‘unpublishable' book that conquered the world
When English author Max Porter wrote his 2015 debut novel, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, he never imagined it would end up on bookshelves, let alone on world stages. At the time, he had a lot on his plate as a father of young children, plus a demanding day job as an editor (he's worked on such highbrow titles as Eleanor Catton's Booker Prize winner The Luminaries and Nobel Prize recipient Han Kang's The Vegetarian). With little time for his own creativity, the self-described 'compulsive maker of things' began fiddling with what he had dubbed his 'crow book' in the evening or on public transport. 'I had this preoccupation for a long time in how to tell the story of these two children who lose a parent, which is based in my own life,' says Porter, whose father died when he was six. 'I was sort of walloping through joyful life and wondering why at age 30 I was still wanting to sit down on a Sunday night and weep for my dad.' The resulting novella became a literary sensation. Its blend of prose, poetry and fable addressed grief not in a didactic manner, but instead with a 'squalid, flapping, unpredictable, scatological madness' as Porter puts it. The work switches between the perspectives of a widowed Ted Hughes scholar, his two boys and the avian visitor Crow, who arrives after the death of their wife and mother and 'won't leave until you don't need me any more'. When Porter first showed it to people, it was deemed almost unpublishable as it was so unlike anything else in the literary landscape. 'I never thought of it as a thing that would sit in bookshops,' Porter says. 'Even when it came out, people were like, where does it go? In poetry? In fiction? In memoir? And I was always quite pleased with that, let it hop around.' Loading The book became not only an international bestseller, but also a critical success, winning the Dylan Thomas Prize and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. It also set off a flurry of adaptations in its wake, including a 2018 play adapted by Enda Walsh starring Cillian Murphy and a big-screen version with Benedict Cumberbatch that premiered at Sundance Film Festival this year. When asked about any other reimaginings, Porter reels off a dizzying array of versions he's aware of, a Birmingham dance adaptation, an Argentinian theatre show, a puppet adaptation in Estonia and a person in Stockholm who wants to do an opera of it.
The Age
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
The ‘unpublishable' book that conquered the world
When English author Max Porter wrote his 2015 debut novel, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, he never imagined it would end up on bookshelves, let alone on world stages. At the time, he had a lot on his plate as a father of young children, plus a demanding day job as an editor (he's worked on such highbrow titles as Eleanor Catton's Booker Prize winner The Luminaries and Nobel Prize recipient Han Kang's The Vegetarian). With little time for his own creativity, the self-described 'compulsive maker of things' began fiddling with what he had dubbed his 'crow book' in the evening or on public transport. 'I had this preoccupation for a long time in how to tell the story of these two children who lose a parent, which is based in my own life,' says Porter, whose father died when he was six. 'I was sort of walloping through joyful life and wondering why at age 30 I was still wanting to sit down on a Sunday night and weep for my dad.' The resulting novella became a literary sensation. Its blend of prose, poetry and fable addressed grief not in a didactic manner, but instead with a 'squalid, flapping, unpredictable, scatological madness' as Porter puts it. The work switches between the perspectives of a widowed Ted Hughes scholar, his two boys and the avian visitor Crow, who arrives after the death of their wife and mother and 'won't leave until you don't need me any more'. When Porter first showed it to people, it was deemed almost unpublishable as it was so unlike anything else in the literary landscape. 'I never thought of it as a thing that would sit in bookshops,' Porter says. 'Even when it came out, people were like, where does it go? In poetry? In fiction? In memoir? And I was always quite pleased with that, let it hop around.' Loading The book became not only an international bestseller, but also a critical success, winning the Dylan Thomas Prize and The Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. It also set off a flurry of adaptations in its wake, including a 2018 play adapted by Enda Walsh starring Cillian Murphy and a big-screen version with Benedict Cumberbatch that premiered at Sundance Film Festival this year. When asked about any other reimaginings, Porter reels off a dizzying array of versions he's aware of, a Birmingham dance adaptation, an Argentinian theatre show, a puppet adaptation in Estonia and a person in Stockholm who wants to do an opera of it.
RTÉ News
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Eve Hewson to star in new move with George Clooney and Adam Sandler.
Irish actors Eve Hewson and Thaddea Graham are set to star alongside George Clooney and Adam Sandler in director Noah Baumbach's new movie Jay Kelly. Netflix has released a first look image from the film, which is described as "a heartbreaking comedy", and which will be in select cinemas and streaming on 5 December. Hewson, the daughter of U2 front man Bono, has previously starred in This Must Be the Place, The Luminaries, Behind Her Eyes, comedy series Bad Sisters, and The Perfect Couple. Clooney and Hewson have worked together before on Hedda, which is about Henrik Ibsen's renowned 1891 stage drama, Hedda Gabler, and is due to released this October. Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1 last year, he told Miriam O'Callaghan, "Eve is a good friend of mine." Northern Ireland actress Thaddea Graham has appeared in Sky One series Curfew, Netflix series The Letter for the King, Sex Education, and the BBC series Us. Written by Emily Mortimer and Baumbach, who has previously directed the acclaimed movies Marriage Story, The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg, and Frances Ha, the tagline for the new project reads, "Everybody knows Jay Kelly, but Jay Kelly doesn't know himself." The cast also includes Billy Crudup, Laura Dern, Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Riley Keough, Emily Mortimer, Patrick Wilson, Nicôle Lecky, Jim Broadbent, Alba Rohrwacher, Lenny Henry, Josh Hamilton, and Greta Gerwig.
