52 Novels

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Sitting in the theater over the weekend, watching GONE, BABY, GONE—Ben Affleck’s solid directorial debut—I couldn’t help but think that, without books, Hollywood would be screwed.

Quite frankly, and without a doubt, the best movies come from books.

I remember watching flicks as a kid and being surprised that the movie I just saw was based on a novel. Not coincidentally, some of the books that make this list are the direct result of that discovery. Now, I find I’m shocked when a decent movie I’ve seen didn’t begin as someone’s novel.

I’m not saying that there aren’t screenwriters out there incapable of a decent script that didn’t originate from someone’s novel or short story… because there are screenwriters out there who do write good, original material for the screen.

It seems, though, most of those people both write and direct the movie… such as Noah Baumbach, Kevin Smith, and Wes Anderson. Plus, we get any number of comic book movies every year that have canonical roots in the books themselves, but the work that appears on the finished page comes from the mind of a screenwriter (or five… plus an uncredited dialogue polish from Carrie Fisher).

So, after leaving the theater, my wife and I discussed the movie. She didn’t like it, by the way. I liked it more than she did, but I don’t think Affleck’s name should appear among the list of directors nominated for an Oscar next year.

“What’d you think,” I asked.

“It was okay.”

“You didn’t like it.”

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “I’m glad there was more movie after the part where I thought it was going to end. Otherwise, I thought it would’ve totally sucked. It was just kind of slow. I kept waiting for something to happen.”

Fair enough. I nodded and said, “I kept reminding myself the movie was true to Dennis Lehane’s story without being faithful to the words on the page, kinda take it for what it was. Still, it just wasn’t as good as the book I’d just finished reading.”

“You know,” she said, “I think mediocre books make better movies.”

“I can see that. Really good books have really good characters and movies sometimes can’t do what books do. Books have the luxury of space and time to reveal character, so directors really have to finds something small and really get it right for it to work.”

“I can’t wait for Peter Jackson to make THE LOVELY BONES because it’s probably going to be great. That book was a chore.”

I laughed. But that got me thinking more about good books that ended up as good movies.

That said, what follows are the best six book-to-movie adaptations ever made. Please, don’t go all half-cocked on me… I did establish some criteria:

• The book must be one that I’ve read
• The movie must be one that I’ve seen
• The movie must be faithful to the story

It had to meet all points above or it didn’t count. I thought about them a lot and here they are:

THE GODFATHER/THE GODFATHER, PART II

I realize that this is two movies, but PART II’s flashback scenes—almost half the movie—came directly from the novel so it’s really a continuation of the first in ways that sequels usually aren’t.

There’s not much, however, to say about these movies that hasn’t been said much better by others before me. But I will say I’ve never seen a book brought to life so perfectly by its movie counterpart than in this example.

I’ve owned the movies on VHS or DVD, and the novel now for twenty years. I often read the book and then follow it immediately with a movie marathon. Try it sometime… it’s a Godfather Geek-a-palooza.

ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN

Who said the book had to be fiction? Not me.

I remember seeing this movie in the very early 80s and being fascinated by the story… mystery and palace intrigue, good versus evil, dirty shenanigans.

It’s where I learned that “follow the money” was the secret to unraveling most everything, and I was hooked by the fact that these guys were writers—not cops. And, for the son of a cop, it was almost a life changing revelation.

What’s more is that Woodward and Bernstein turned reporters into celebrities for reporting. I’ve also done the read-the-book-watch-the-movie thing with this one, too.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP

I’ve mentioned it before, but this book is what made me want to become a writer. But I never would’ve known it was a book had I not seen the movie.

In fact, I loved this movie so much that—after watching it on HBO for the first time—I had my dad drive me to the bookstore to buy the book. I still have the same copy and I’ve read it countless times since.

BIRDY

Not many people remember this movie—which won the Grand Prize of the Jury at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival—and I’m not sure that many more remember the book (William Wharton’s first).

But it’s a brilliant story of guys whose friendship is forged on the tough streets of Philly and nearly torn apart by the Viet Nam war. The 80s brought us many Viet Nam movies—most of them more famous—but none of them were better than this one.

Oddly enough, I’ve read this book just once. Still, it’s one of my favorites.

DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?/BLADE RUNNER

As crazy as it is, this movie was my first real introduction to the noir tradition. I was fourteen years old in 1982, the year of this movie’s release, and in love with science fiction. Take the guy who played Han Solo and put him in another sci fi movie and, well, it was cinematic genius where I was concerned.

I got way more than I’d bargained for with BLADE RUNNER. Ridley Scott’s stunning cinematic masterpiece—even the voiceover version—freaking blew me away.

Little did I know that my love affair with this movie—and Phil Dick’s brilliant book—would still be on fire some twenty five years later. And, yes, I’m super-stoked for the movie’s silver anniversary DVD release in December.

JURASSIC PARK

I literally read the final word and turned the last page of this book as the lights dimmed inside the theater on its opening weekend. Somehow, I remember the guys sitting in front of me and my girlfriend—who’s now my wife—taking bets on how many movie trailers there’d be. I think it was seven.

No matter, I’d borrowed my buddy Ike’s copy of the book—which he’d had long before the flick came out—and madly raced through it, trying to time my finish with the opening. I didn’t want to spoil the book by seeing the movie first.

While the movie version of Crichton’s thriller wasn’t as closely played to the page as some of the others on this list, the brilliance of Spielberg and all those wonderful computer dinosaurs made this a magnificent movie.

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38 I picked this book for two reasons:

1. Lots of crime fic readers—Lehane fans a given—recommended it highly.
2. I knew the movie was getting lots of advance buzz, so I wanted to read it before I saw it.

That said, I waited to write this review (which I’m doing on November 11th… the post date says October 17th) because I wanted my opinion of the movie and the book both to stand on their own. I’m not sure why it mattered to me. It just did.

Now, three weeks after the fact, I wish I’d done them together because, quite frankly, the review for the book would’ve been just two words long: LOVED IT!

My prior experience reading Lehane was UNTIL GWEN, a short story complied in the 2005 volume of THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES. I loved that, too. (Not a complete Lehane neophyte, I’d also seen the movie version of MYSTIC RIVER.)

So why had I taken so long to drink up more of Lehane’s brilliance? Ignorance? Nah. More like “too many books, not enough time.” We all know how that story goes.

In a way I’m glad I’ve left Lehane off my TBR for so long. I’m late to the party, yes, but I got here when all the good shit happens.

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