Anna Stothard

In my review of Anna Stothard's book The Pink Hotel, which is jammed full of bright, noisy imagery, I couldn't help speculating about its chances of being filmed. I've been able to ask Anna herself about that. Thinking of the many 'first goes' that had to wait for the success of the next one before getting printed, I asked her if The Pink Hotel was her first attempt at a novel.

No, she replied - when she was nineteen she wrote a novel called Isabel and Rocco, about a teenage brother and sister abandoned by their parents and living alone in a disintegrating house in Camden Town. It was written from the perspective of the sister, cataloguing all her 'first times' and how each one solidified her further into being an adult.

“I was a very antisocial child though, so there were other attempts before Isabel and Rocco - my first attempt at a full length novel was called Virgin Megastore, about a bunch of teenagers hanging out at the fun fair on Wimbledon Common.

'Then there were two novellas about demonic circus performers and psychic mermaids when I was thirteen.  I found a copy of it in my Dad’s bookshelves recently – sweet that he kept a copy, considering it’s exactly the opposite of what I expect fathers want to know about their adolescent daughter – I was appalled at what was in my thirteen year old head. There are very detailed descriptions of people turning into animals, lots of screaming and groaning and body-transformation, and lots of confused adolescent sexuality.”

- It's very visual, I said - has there been any whiff of interest from film production?

“Yes, excitingly, the contract is being finalised at the moment. It's with an indie company in LA. I'm a big fan of the people involved and very excited, but I don't want to speak too soon. I haven't signed on the dotted line yet...

'Los Angeles is a very visual place. While The Pink Hotel explores the underbelly of the city and hardly touches on "the industry" (except that David, the love interest, is a paparazzi), I wanted the book to feel a little cinematic.”

I’m fairly confident that Pink Hotel could be a damn good movie. If ‘fairly confidant’ sounds lacking in actual confidence, think of (for instance) ‘Bonfire of the Vanities', which on paper reads like a can't-fail blockbuster; but by the time it got produced it came over as rather more ordinaire.
Isabel and Rocco sounds to me like yet another contender for the silver screen. I live in hope... Altogether now: ‘We believe in Tinkerbell!’