One of the year’s most heavily reviewed debuts, Swamplandia! by Karen Russell has been acquired for a half-hour comedy by HBO. Scott Rudin, known for his literary adaptations, has signed on as producer, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

HBO has several other literary projects in the works, including an adaptation of Jonathan Frazen’s The Corrections (also with Rudin), and Neil Gaiman‘s American Gods. Earlier HBO announced plans for Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad  (in April, but no news since), Mary Karr’s memoir Lit (June) and Robert Graves’ I Claudius  (June).

Twenty-four-year old Russell was selected as one of The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” top fiction writers. Reviewing Swamplandia! in the NYT Book Review, Emma Donoghue (Room) called it high comedy, “Vividly worded, exuberant in characterization, the novel is a wild ride: Russell has style in spades.” The paperback is currently on the Indie Paperback Fiction Best Seller list, after 12 weeks. It reached a high of #9.

Swamplandia! Karen Russell Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2011-02-01) ISBN / EAN: 0307263991 / 9780307263995

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 20th, 2011 at 5:49 pm and is filed under 2011/12 - Winter/Spring, Books & TV, Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.