THE BOOK'S A LOT BETTER THAN THE MOVIE.
He spent twenty years writing his masterpiece. But Hollywood needed considerably less time to completely ruin it.
By day, he sells other people's stories. By night, he has spent twenty years writing his own. Purradise is an epic fantasy of cats, fallen knights, singing mountains, grief, courage and a mysterious Wound in the sky. Nobody has ever read it. Nobody is particularly likely to. And with the bank threatening to close Harbour & Page for good, Localad has rather more immediate problems to worry about than his literary immortality.
Then a Hollywood producer's car breaks down outside his shop. He enters to use the telephone and leaves with Localad's manuscript. And from there on in, everything goes magnificently, catastrophically wrong for his story.
Soon Localad is on his way to Los Angeles, where his deeply personal story is subjected to the full machinery of modern entertainment: studio executives, market research, script notes, franchise opportunities, demographic targeting and an action star named Brick Holland.
The cats became negotiable. The quiet bits are a problem. The ending needs a lot more explosions. And grief would test a lot better on screen if it involved considerably more revenge than the book offers. By the time Purradise reaches the red carpet, Localad can barely recognise the story carrying his name.
But Hollywood has overlooked one rather important thing. The original book still exists. And when readers finally discover it, eight innocent words begin spreading like wildfire across the internet:
THE BOOK'S A LOT BETTER THAN THE MOVIE.
It’s a warm, sharply funny and unexpectedly moving novel about books, writing, movies, friendship, late-blooming dreams, creative ownership, second chances and what happens when one ordinary man discovers that success and selling yourself are not necessarily the same thing.
Because sometimes the biggest story isn't about becoming famous at all. Sometimes it's about finally deciding which parts of yourself aren't for sale.
For the full story, start here
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