M31: A Family Romance is the second novel written by Stephen Wright. First published in 1988 by Harmony Books, it is a dark satire about media and mass culture as filtered through the lens of a fictional family with extraterrestrial ties.
The Los Angeles Times reviewed M31 as “a novel of original and wide ambitions, largely achieved.” [1] Laura Miller proposed in 2004 that the “undersung” M31 is a candidate for the Great American Novel. [2]
Repo Man is a 1984 American science fiction black comedy film written and directed by Alex Cox in his directorial debut. It stars Harry Dean Stanton and Emilio Estevez, with Tracey Walter, Olivia Barash, Sy Richardson, Vonetta McGee, Fox Harris, and Dick Rude among the supporting cast. Set in Los Angeles, the plot concerns a young punk rocker (Estevez) who is recruited by a car repossession agency and gets caught up in the pursuit of a mysterious Chevrolet Malibu that might be connected to extraterrestrials.
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
Lara Flynn Boyle is an American actress. She is best known for her role as Donna Hayward in the television series Twin Peaks (1990–1991). After portraying Stacy in Penelope Spheeris's comedy Wayne's World (1992), Boyle had a lead role in John Dahl's neo-noir film Red Rock West (1993), followed by roles in Threesome (1994), Cafe Society (1995), and Happiness (1998). Boyle had played the villainous role as Serleena in the blockbuster feature film Men in Black II for which she was nominated for a Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actress. From 1997 to 2003, Boyle portrayed Assistant District Attorney Helen Gamble in the ABC television series The Practice for which she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.
S. S. Van Dine is the pseudonym used by American art critic Willard Huntington Wright when he wrote detective novels. Wright was active in avant-garde cultural circles in pre-World War I New York, and under the pseudonym he created the fictional detective Philo Vance, a sleuth and aesthete who first appeared in books in the 1920s, then in films and on the radio.
The Great American Novel is a canonical novel that is thought to embody the essence of America, generally written by an American and dealing in some way with the question of America's national character. The term was coined by John William De Forest in an 1868 essay. Although De Forest mentioned Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe as a possible contender, he noted that the Great American Novel had most likely not been written yet. Writer Henry James used the shortened term, GAN, in 1880.
Catlow is a 1971 American Western film, based on a 1963 novel of the same name by Louis L'Amour. It stars Yul Brynner as a renegade outlaw determined to pull off a Confederate gold heist. It co-stars Richard Crenna and Leonard Nimoy. Nimoy mentioned this film in both of his autobiographies because it gave him a chance to break away from his role as Spock on Star Trek. He mentioned that the time he made the film was one of the happiest of his life, even though his part was rather brief. The film contains a lot of tongue-in-cheek and sardonic humor, especially between Brynner and Crenna's characters.
Island in the Sun is a 1957 drama film produced by Darryl F. Zanuck and directed by Robert Rossen. It features an ensemble cast including James Mason, Harry Belafonte, Joan Fontaine, Joan Collins, Dorothy Dandridge, Michael Rennie, Stephen Boyd, Patricia Owens, John Justin, Diana Wynyard, John Williams, and Basil Sydney. The film is about race relations and interracial romance set in the fictitious island of Santa Marta. Barbados and Grenada were selected as the sites for the movie based on the 1955 novel by Alec Waugh. The film was controversial at the time of its release for its portrayal of interracial romance.
Benjamin A. Foster is an American actor. He has had roles in films including The Punisher (2004), X-Men: The Last Stand and Alpha Dog, The Messenger and Pandorum, The Mechanic (2011), Contraband (2012), Kill Your Darlings and Lone Survivor, The Program (2015), and Leave No Trace (2018). He was nominated for a Saturn Award and a Satellite Award for his role in 3:10 to Yuma (2007) and won an Independent Spirit Award for portraying Tanner Howard in Hell or High Water (2016). He also acted as Russell Corwin in Six Feet Under (2003–2005). He had a recurring role portraying a high school student named Eli on the Judd Apatow show, Freaks and Geeks (2000), which ran for one season.
Laura Elizabeth Dern is an American actress. She is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a BAFTA Award, and five Golden Globe Awards.
The Amalgamation Polka (2006) is the fourth novel by the writer Stephen Wright. It is set during the time of the American Civil War. The plot concerns the story of Liberty Fish and his travels after joining the Union army. The title refers to a 19th-century lithograph showing a social gathering in which the participants, unusually for the time, are both white and black. It is captioned “This blending of the two races by amalgamation is just what is needed for the perfection of both.”
Stephen Wright is a novelist based in New York City known for his use of surrealistic imagery and dark comedy. His work has varied from hallucinatory accounts of war, a family drama among UFO cultists, carnivalesque novel on a serial killer, to a picaresque taking place during the Civil War.
Laura Ellen Ziskin was an American film producer, known as the executive producer of Pretty Woman (1990) and producer of Spider-Man (2002), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), and The Amazing Spider-Man. She was also the first woman to produce the Academy Awards telecast alone, producing the 74th Academy Awards (2002) and the 79th Academy Awards (2007).
Laura Wright is an American author of romance novels.
Radio Free Albemuth is a 2010 American film adaptation of the dystopian novel Radio Free Albemuth by author Philip K. Dick, which was written in 1976 and published posthumously in 1985. The film is written, directed, and produced by John Alan Simon and stars Jonathan Scarfe and Shea Whigham.
Page to Screen is an American documentary television series hosted by Peter Gallagher, and narrated by David Hibbard. The series premiered October 28, 2002 on Bravo. Page to Screen explores the process of translating novels into films.
Sphinx is a 1981 American adventure film directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starring Lesley-Anne Down and Frank Langella. The screenplay by John Byrum is based on the 1979 novel of the same name by Robin Cook.
Hammerhead is a British Eurospy thriller film directed by David Miller and starring Vince Edwards, Judy Geeson, and Diana Dors. Its plot concerns a criminal mastermind who attempts to steal NATO secrets, with an American agent hot on his trail. It is based on the 1964 novel by English novelist James Mayo, and produced by Irving Allen and written by Herbert Baker, who made the Matt Helm films for Columbia Pictures. It was filmed in London and Portugal.
Mary U. Miller is an American fiction writer. She is the author of two collections of short stories entitled Big World and Always Happy Hour. Her debut novel entitled The Last Days of California was published by Liveright. It is the story of a fourteen-year-old girl on a family road trip from the South to California, led by her evangelical father. By January 2014, Big World had sold 3,000 copies and Last Days of California had an initial print run of 25,000.
Jean Carolyn Guerrero is an American investigative journalist, author, essayist, columnist and former foreign correspondent. She is the author of Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir, winner of the PEN/FUSION Emerging Writers Prize, and Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda, published in 2020 by William Morrow. Guerrero's KPBS series America's Wall won an Emmy Award. Her essay "My Father Says He's a 'Targeted Individual.' Maybe We All Are" was selected for The Best American Essays anthology of 2019.
Going Native is the third novel written by Stephen Wright. First published in 1994 by Farrar Straus & Giroux, it is a portrait of irredeemable American culture.
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