 | |
| Author | David Benioff |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Published | 2001 (Carroll & Graf Publishers) |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 224 pp |
| ISBN | 0-7867-0772-0 |
| OCLC | 45482019 |
| 813/.6 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3552.E54425 A614 2000 |
The 25th Hour is the 2001 debut novel by David Benioff. A film adaptation, for which Benioff wrote the screenplay, was directed by Spike Lee and released in 2002.
The idea for the book came when Benioff returned home to New York for Passover while he was away working in Wyoming. He suffered from appendicitis and had to undergo emergency surgery. Benioff said: "Walking the halls of Mount Sinai afterward, seeing people walking up 5th Avenue and Central Park and trapped in the hospital, I had a sense of being so close to the city and not being a part of it." He continued: "I thought, 'What if you are not stuck for five days, but seven years?' And that is writing what you don't know. Taking a banal problem and making it much more serious." [1]
Benioff spent two years writing the novel, and completed the book as his thesis for a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing at the University of California Irvine in 1999. [2] [3] [4] The book was originally titled Fireman Down, but was changed to The 25th Hour on the advice of the publisher who accepted the book with a $7,500 advance. [3] [5] The book was published in 2001.
He was asked to adapt the book into a screenplay by Tobey Maguire, who had read a preliminary trade copy and became interested in making a film of the book. [6] It was filmed as 25th Hour , starring Edward Norton and directed by Spike Lee. [5] [7]
New York drug dealer Monty Brogan is arrested for drug possession with intent to sell, and sentenced to seven years in prison. He spends his last night of freedom with two friends, contemplating his uncertain future and the decisions he made that brought him to this point. [1]
Publishers Weekly said The 25th Hour was "brilliantly conceived, this gripping crime drama boasts dead-on dialogue, chiaroscuro portraits of New York's social strata and an inescapable crescendo of tension." [8] Bookseller said that it had "powerful characterization and dialogue." [9] Entertainment Weekly rated it an A-minus, saying that Benioff "shows a knack for critiquing his genre while revitalizing its cliches" and the novel "achieves both pathos and excitement." [10]
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays Glengarry Glen Ross (1984) and Speed-the-Plow (1988). He first gained critical acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway 1970s plays: The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. His plays Race and The Penitent, respectively, opened on Broadway in 2009 and previewed off-Broadway in 2017.
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American filmmaker and actor. Lee's work has continually explored race relations, issues within the black community, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime and poverty, and other political issues. He has won numerous accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, a Student Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, a BAFTA Award, and two Peabody Awards. He has also been honored with an Honorary BAFTA Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2003, the Academy Honorary Award in 2019, and a Gala Tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center as well as the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize.
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American novelist who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He has published 19 novels, three nonfiction books, two graphic novels, and two adult coloring books, as well as several short stories. His first published novel was Fight Club, which was adapted into a film of the same title.
Hubert "Cubby" Selby Jr. was an American writer. Two of his novels, Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) and Requiem for a Dream (1978) explore worlds in the New York area and were adapted as films, both of which he appeared in.
Adaptation is a 2002 American meta comedy-drama film directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman. It features an ensemble cast including Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep, and Chris Cooper, with Cara Seymour, Brian Cox, Tilda Swinton, Ron Livingston, and Maggie Gyllenhaal in supporting roles.
Naked Lunch is a 1991 surrealist science fiction drama film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Scheider. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs' 1959 novel of the same name, and an international co-production of Canada, Britain, and Japan.
25th Hour is a 2002 American drama film directed by Spike Lee and starring Edward Norton. Adapted by David Benioff from his own 2001 debut novel The 25th Hour, it tells the story of a man's last 24 hours of freedom as he prepares to go to prison for seven years for dealing drugs.
Before Sunset is a 2004 American romantic drama film directed by Richard Linklater, who co-wrote the screenplay with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, from a story by Linklater and Kim Krizan. The sequel to Before Sunrise (1995) and the second installment in the Before trilogy, Before Sunset follows Jesse (Hawke) and Céline (Delpy) as they reunite nine years later in Paris.
A novelization is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of home video, but continue to find commercial success as part of marketing campaigns for major films. They are often written by accomplished writers based on an early draft of the film's script and on a tight deadline.
James Dover Grant, primarily known by his pen name Lee Child, is a British author who writes thriller novels, and is best known for his Jack Reacher novel series. The books follow the adventures of a former American military policeman, Jack Reacher, who wanders the United States. His first novel, Killing Floor (1997), won both the Anthony Award and the Barry Award for Best First Novel.
Alice Sebold is an American author. She is known for her novels The Lovely Bones and The Almost Moon, and a memoir, Lucky. The Lovely Bones was on The New York Times Best Seller list and was adapted into a film by the same name in 2010. Her memoir, Lucky, sold over a million copies and describes her experience in her first year at Syracuse University, when she was raped. Anthony Broadwater, who was incorrectly identified as the perpetrator by Sebold, ultimately served 16 years in prison. He was exonerated in 2021, after a judge found serious issues with the original conviction.
David Friedman, known professionally as David Benioff, is an American writer, director and producer. Along with his collaborator D. B. Weiss, he is best known as co-creator and showrunner of Game of Thrones (2011–2019), the HBO adaptation of George R. R. Martin's series of books A Song of Ice and Fire. He also wrote 25th Hour (2002), Troy (2004), City of Thieves (2008) and co-wrote X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009).
Clockers is a 1995 American crime drama film directed by Spike Lee. It is an adaptation of the 1992 novel of the same name by Richard Price, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Lee. The film stars Harvey Keitel, John Turturro, Delroy Lindo, and Mekhi Phifer in his debut film role. Set in New York City, Clockers tells the story of Strike (Phifer), a street-level drug dealer who becomes entangled in a murder investigation.
Richard Price is an American novelist and screenwriter, known for the books The Wanderers (1974), Clockers (1992) and Lush Life (2008). Price's novels explore late-20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy.
The Man with the Golden Arm is a novel by Nelson Algren, published by Doubleday in November 1949. One of the seminal novels of post-World War II American letters, The Man with the Golden Arm is widely considered Algren's greatest and most enduring work. It won the National Book Award in 1950.
The 25th Hour is a 2001 novel by David Benioff.
Millennium is a series of best-selling and award-winning Swedish crime novels, created by journalist Stieg Larsson. The two primary characters in the saga are Lisbeth Salander, an asocial computer hacker with a photographic memory, and Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist and publisher of a magazine called Millennium.
Kent Carroll is the publisher of Europa Editions. He is the former Editor-in-Chief of Grove Press, and the Co-founder, Publisher, and Editor-in-Chief of Carroll & Graf.
When the Nines Roll Over is a 2004 short story collection by David Benioff. A short film adaptation of the first of the seven stories, for which Benioff wrote the screenplay, directed, and produced, was released in 2005.
Douglas Stuart is a Scottish-American writer and fashion designer. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, he studied at the Scottish College of Textiles and at London's Royal College of Art, before moving at the age of 24 to New York City, where he built a successful career in fashion design, while also beginning to write. His debut novel, Shuggie Bain – which had initially been turned down by many publishers on both sides of the Atlantic – was awarded the 2020 Booker Prize. His second novel, Young Mungo, was published in April 2022.