By I know we’re a film site and all, but it’s hard not to get excited about this news. Yes, Charlie Kaufman has signed a deal with Grand Central Publishing to pen his first novel. I would have assumed he’d sign with McSweeney’s for his first book. Shows what I know.
Details about the novel are being kept under wraps. Given Kaufman’s films, I’m sort of expecting a playful bit of metafiction and/or fabulism, maybe along the lines of Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borges, Donald Barthelme, Flann O’Brien, Steven Millhauser, or Vladimir Nabokov (specifically Pale Fire). Maybe it’ll be a big old Thomas Pynchon, Umberto Eco, or Haruki Murakami kind of book. Or maybe he’ll just write a bodice-ripper with an airbrushed, shirtless Fabio atop a white unicorn ready to seduce a female centaur.
In the meantime, we await Kaufman’s next film as a writer/director: Frank or Francis, a musical. If you’re a writer, by the way, I encourage you to check out Charlie Kaufman’s BAFTA speech on writing.
[Via Deadline]