Pulitzer Winner Jennifer Egan Wants Benicio del Toro for HBO's 'Visit From the Goon Squad'

By Jo Piazza Posted May 25th 2011 01:05PM

benicio del toro visit from the goon squad

When we learned Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer prize-winning novel 'A Visit From the Goon Squad' had been optioned for an HBO series we here at PopEater scratched our heads. 'Goon Squad' is a wonderful but complicated book that spans about six decades and hops around in the heads of many different characters.

But if anyone could do it, it's HBO. We asked author Jennifer Egan, who is hosting the launch of GoodReads' first-ever book club tonight at Housing Works in New York City, if she had any thoughts about how the book would play on the small screen and, more importantly, who would play the pivotal characters.

"I was thinking Benicio del Toro would be pretty good as Bennie. He has a strong controlling quality but also seems to register as someone who could go out of control," Egan tells PopEater.

HBO might be the perfect home for 'Goon Squad' -- 'The Sopranos' was the inspiration for the book, though it has nothing to do with Jersey mobsters.

"I was crazy about that show and I thought very hard about how it accrued its power and I thought about how some of those elements would work in fiction," Egan tells us. "The thing that I loved was the way that lots of story lines were going on at once, and I loved the way that characters would go from being peripheral to suddenly being important, and I loved the way time passed."

GoodReads, the largest online reading community in the world, is using 'Goon Squad' for their first global book club, which kicks off next month.

For lack of a better term, a lot of critics refer to Egan as an experimental writer. Her books play with elements of time. In 'Good Squad,' she writes an entire chapter in PowerPoint. But "experimental" isn't a term Egan necessarily loves.

"I think of myself as willing to do anything it takes to tell a fresh story. My association with 'experimental' is that it is someone whose first priority is to experiment,and my first priority is to find a story layered and complex enough that it requires a fresh thinking and approach," Egan says. "When I hear someone is an experimental writer I conjure up someone with dry stuff whose primary goal is to be different rather than tell a compelling story. If I can have that goal and still be an experimental writer, then I am happy to be called that."

In celebration of her book being chosen by GoodReads, we asked Egan what she is reading right now.

"Emma Donoghue's 'Room' -- I don't tend to be drawn to books about motherhood but I felt she dug into the core of the mystery of the relationship between mother and child. 'Swim Back to Me' by Anne Packer, and the next book I am reading is Gary Shteyngart's 'Super Sad True Love Story.'"

All of which would be excellent summer reading choices.

See Jennifer Egan Talk 'Goon Squad' in a Pulitzer Report:

Tags: A Visit From the Goon Squad, Benicio Del Toro

Comments

(5)

Thursday 26 May

By peter

Vote down Vote up Report this

I'm also surprised this is being made into an HBO series. The book was kinda overrated, I don't think it deserved the Pulitzer Prize. And the article is right - the story hops back and forth between so many decades, it will be hard to tell a coherent story.

Wednesday 01 June

By rob

I think Hollywood feels sorry for him as he has been attached to a few films now tv..well he does have child support to pay soon...poor guy

Monday 13 June

By stargem72

I agree someone needs gives this man an acting role as I fear he may do something stupid again..

Tuesday 14 June

By robertdean

Benicio should get a another oscar for getting Kimberly Stewart pregnant...It doesn't matter how many roles he gets now as he will only be know for getting KS Pregnant no other guy has who is a hollywood oscar winning actor. poor guy

Thursday 07 July

By AM

Poor guy - I think not. He needs to start concentrating on his career, cut down on the booze and stop sticking his d**k everywhere!

Page 1 of 1