Ayelet Publicity Tour Begins

The Ayelet Waldman publicity tour for her new book got off to its first start today with an interview in USA Today.

Waldman’s newest book, Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace, goes on sale Tuesday. She tells USA Today that she’s prepared for controversy akin to what came after she confessed in 2005 that she loved her husband more than her children.

“I am a little bit more protected now because 1) I have a feeling that it might be coming, and 2) I have fail-safes built in,” she told the paper. “I love reader mail, and I do read it, but I won’t read hate mail.”

Waldman also gave an interview to her hometown paper, the Berkeley Daily Planet. She tells the paper her new book is “half memoir and rant…and half social commentary on what contemporary American women find themselves in, the parlor game of how a mother feels–eternal ambivalence, anxiety.”

Waldman will be giving readings throughout the next two months across the country, beginning next week in Washington, D.C. on Monday and New York on Tuesday. For more information, head to her Web site.

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Chabon Lectures on Poe

Following the news that he’d been hired to revise the script for Disney’s John Carter of Mars, Michael Chabon took to Northwestern University on Monday to deliver a lecture on — what else — Edgar Allen Poe.

The Daily Northwestern reports that Chabon recited Poe’s poem “Ulalume,” “his rendition was more performance than presentation.” A blog maintained by three MFA graduates in Montana says Chabon then went on to discuss how to instill horror into writing. He also could relate to Poe, the Northwestern reports.

“Bookish, homely, clumsy, bright, friendless, arrogant and self-pitying – I was all those things at the same time,” Chabon said. “The tag of ‘nerd’ did not come into general use in the school corridors of my hometown until the following year and words like ‘geek’ or ‘fanboy’ or even, in its full derogatory richness, ‘loser’ remained years away from finding their way onto the ‘kick me’ sign I wore taped to my back.”

The Chicago Tribune, in an article previewing the lecture, asked Chabon why he chose to lecture on Poe.

“Well, it was either Poe or Robert Ludlum,” Chabon said. “In the end, I just pulled the trigger and picked Poe. [Laughs] I’m totally kidding. The writers I tend to like are the writers who meet you at any point you return to them. So, you know, when you read Poe when you’re a kid, you notice the obvious, surface appeal of Poe — a lot of the gothic horror and the extreme states of consciousness and the macabre imagery. But when I go to Poe now, at the age of almost 46, I’m a lot less interested in that sort of stuff now. When I go to Poe now, there’s the incredible sense of loss. The ache of loss that permeates Poe.”

The Tribune diverged from Poe to ask Chabon about other topics. The author says he thinks a Kavalier & Clay movie will “eventually” get made, despite past road bumps. Asked if he was worried if the Mysteries of Pittsburgh movie might give a new life to questions about his sexuality, Chabon said he “didn’t care.” The reporter then asked if he was “uncomfortable” being identified as a bisexual author.

“Yeah, well, uncomfortable because I’m not bisexual,” Chabon said. “Uncomfortable isn’t even the right word. It would be like if I was identified as a Mennonite novelist. To quote Seinfeld — not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s just not the case. But ultimately, it doesn’t matter one way or the other.”

‘Mysteries’ Finally Opens in Theaters

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is finally opening today in limited release. If you are in New York, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, then you too can go and see Jon Foster, Sienna Miller, and Peter Sarsgaard bring Michael Chabon’s first movie to the big screen.

But should you?

Let’s face it, the reviews, well, they ain’t that pretty. And there’s a reason it’s taken more than a year since it opened at Sundance in 2007 for the movie to finally to get distribution. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gives the film only two out of five stars, calling it “artificial” and says “to call it ‘inspired by’ [Chabon’s novel would be a stretch.” Ebert has some good words for the cast, noting “some well-developed performances for such an underdeveloped screenplay” thanks to Sarsgaard and Mena Suvari, among others. But still, Ebert doesn’t sound thrilled.

A.O. Scott of The New York Times says “even the most passionate fan of Pittsburgh-in-the-’80s-crazy-summer-coming-of-age stories is likely to be disappointed” by Mysteries, “a clumsy and confused adaptation” of Chabon’s novel. David Wiegand of the San Francisco Chronicle calls it an “earnest but unconvincing film” missing “the edge, charm and drily pointed cultural observations that made Chabon’s 1988 debut so auspicious.”

Almost all the reviews compare Rawson Marshall Thurber’s film to last weekend’s other coming-of-age flick, Adventureland, with the implication being your money is better spent watching that over what Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune calls a “slick” but ultimately “fake” film. Indeed, out of 139 reviews, Rotten Tomatoes says 88 percent were positive for Adventureland; of the 16 reviews for Mysteries, only 11 percent were good.

If you want to judge for yourself, you can find the trailer over at Apple. I myself will probably go this weekend just to see for myself if it’s as bad as it sounds. But don’t say I didn’t warn you in advance.

Chabon Revising ‘John Carter of Mars’ Script

In yesterday’s item by Deadline Hollywood Daily about Michael Chabon switching agents, it mentioned that he was attached to write a script for Disney’s John Carter of Mars. Having never heard that before, I checked in with Chabon to see if it was accurate. The answer is yes.

“I’ve been hired to do some revisions to an already strong script by Andrew Stanton and Mark Andrews,” Chabon said. “I wrote my original screenplay The Martian Agent back in 1995 because I wished I could do [Edgar Rice] Burroughs’s Barsoom. So this is pretty much a dream come true for me.”

Disney got the option rights to Burrough’s 11-volume series in 2007 after the rights lapsed at Paramount Pictures. Andrew Stanton, the writer and director of Finding Nemo and WALL-E, is set to direct. It’s expected to hit theaters in 2012.

Chabon Switches Hollywood Agents

Michael Chabon has left longtime Hollywood agents for a new team, industry blog Deadline Hollywood Daily reported Wednesday.

Chabon is leaving Creative Artists Agency to be represented by United Talent Agency, Nikki Finke’s insider blog reported. UTA reportedly battled it out against rival agency Endeavor Talent Agency to sign Chabon. The agency will handle his screenwriting gigs, which has included Spider-Man 2. Chabon is still signed up as the screenwriter for the long-stalled adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

Deadline Hollywood says Chabon will also continue to be represented by New York publishing agent Mary Evans and David Colden of the Beverly Hills entertainment law firm Colden McKuin & Frankel.

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