Steve Erickson

  • print Summer 2011

    Advise and Consent (1959) by Allen Drury

    When Advise and Consent, the biggest-selling book of 1960, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it was indicative of either the Pulitzer committee’s shockingly middlebrow sensibility or its admirable populism, depending on how you want to look at it. Centering on the Senate confirmation hearings of a liberal nominee for secretary of state, Allen Drury’s blockbuster might be regarded as a forerunner of the political thriller, a genre that didn’t really make much sense to people (politics could be thrilling?) until the likes of Ludlum and Clancy gave another genre, the spy novel (with, you know,

  • print June/July/Aug 2007

    Best Adaptations

    FRANCINE PROSE

    HOUSEHOLD SAINTS (Nancy Savoca, 1993) Perhaps it’s narcissistic, but I have to say that my favorite adaptation is of my novel. By now, the book and the film have so melded in my mind, I picture Lili Taylor and Judith Malina when I think of the grandmother and granddaughter I created.

    WISE BLOOD (John Huston, 1979) This adaptation of Flannery O’Connor’s novel features the great Harry Dean Stanton as the blind preacher.

    THE TIN DRUM (Volker Schlöndorff, 1979) The little boy is amazing, and the eel and horsehead scene is just as upsetting as it is in the novel.

    THE GODFATHER