Irish Film: Lenny Abrahamson to adapt Laird Hunt's Neverhome

Element Pictures announced today, September 24th, that they have acquired film and TV rights to Laird Hunt’s critically acclaimed novel Neverhomewith long-time Element collaborator Lenny Abrahamson set to direct and Ed Guiney producing.

Neverhome tells the incredible story of Ash Thompson who leaves her husband to don the uniform of a Union soldier in the American Civil War. Through bloodshed, hysteria, and heartbreak, she becomes a hero, a folk legend, a madwoman, and a traitor to the American cause.

The recent US publication of Neverhome is meeting with universal praise. The New York Times found it  “Enthralling….Rarely a voice so compels”; USA Today believes that it “joins the ranks of the brilliant novels not just of the Civil War but war writ large.” O Magazine says “the novel’s cadence is deceptively low-key—it lulls, then startles with its power—much like the miraculous Ash.”

Novelist Paul Auster called it “A spare, beautiful novel, so deeply about America and the language of America that its sentences seem to rise up from the earth itself. Laird Hunt had me under his spell from the first word of Neverhome to the last. Magnificent.”

Laird Hunt said [quote]I couldn’t be more thrilled or honored that Neverhome is in the hands of Lenny Abrahamson and Ed Guiney whose work I so emphatically admire.[/quote]

Director Lenny Abrahamson (Frank, What Richard Did, Garage) said “Laird has written a truly amazing  novel and created in Ash a character so vivid and original. I could not be more excited about making this film”.

Producer Ed Guiney (Frank, What Richard Did, The Guard) of Element Pictures said, “We are so excited to be involved with Hunt’s beguiling novel and look forward to taking it to the big screen.”

Abrahamson  is currently in pre-production in Canada, working on Roombased on the bestselling novel (and screenplay) by Emma Donoghue and also produced by Ed Guiney for Element.

Laird Hunt is the author of several works of fiction and a two-time finalist for the PEN Center USA Award in Fiction. Neverhome was published in the United States by Little, Brown and Company and will be published by Chatto in the UK in early 2015.

The deal was brokered by Lesley Thorne, Aitken Alexander Associates Ltd, on behalf of Anna Stein, AAA LLC New York and by Ed Guiney and Mark Byrne for Element.?