Sponsored message
Audience-funded nonprofit news
radio tower icon laist logo
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Subscribe
  • Listen Now Playing Listen

This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.

This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.

Arts & Entertainment

'Transparent' Creator To Adapt 'I Love Dick' For Amazon

soloway_transparent.jpg
Jill Soloway at the premiere of 'Transparent's second season. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

Truth matters. Community matters. Your support makes both possible. LAist is one of the few places where news remains independent and free from political and corporate influence. Stand up for truth and for LAist. Make your year-end tax-deductible gift now.


Amazon has ordered a new comedy from Transparent creator Jill Soloway—an adaptation of the controversial, yet influential, novel I Love Dick.Deadline first reported on Thursday that Amazon gave the green light to I Love Dick, which will be written by playwright Sarah Gubbins and produced by Soloway and Andrea Sperling's Topple Productions. The novel, written by Chris Kraus and published in 1997, is a free-flowing, semi-autobiographical memoir structured around a series of letters between the characters, and its synopsis makes it sound like a tough one to adapt to television. Via Deadline:

I Love Dick is set in a colorful academic community in Marfa, Texas. It centers on a struggling married couple, Chris and Sylvere, and their mutual obsession with an off-putting but charismatic professor, Dick. Told in Rashomon-style shifts of POV, I Love Dick charts the unraveling of a marriage, the awakening of an artist and the reluctant deification of a man named Dick.

Despite being completely absurd and hilarious, the events of I Love Dick are apparently mostly real. The titular Dick of the novel, while never identified by last name, is the sociologist Dick Hebdige, who threatened to sue Kraus over the novel.Soloway picked up mountains of acclaim and awards for her work with Transparent. This book appears to be in good hands.

You come to LAist because you want independent reporting and trustworthy local information. Our newsroom doesn’t answer to shareholders looking to turn a profit. Instead, we answer to you and our connected community. We are free to tell the full truth, to hold power to account without fear or favor, and to follow facts wherever they lead. Our only loyalty is to our audiences and our mission: to inform, engage, and strengthen our community.

Right now, LAist has lost $1.7M in annual funding due to Congress clawing back money already approved. The support we receive before year-end will determine how fully our newsroom can continue informing, serving, and strengthening Southern California.

If this story helped you today, please become a monthly member today to help sustain this mission. It just takes 1 minute to donate below.

Your tax-deductible donation keeps LAist independent and accessible to everyone.
Senior Vice President News, Editor in Chief

Make your tax-deductible year-end gift today

A row of graphics payment types: Visa, MasterCard, Apple Pay and PayPal, and  below a lock with Secure Payment text to the right