Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

Morning Roundup

• Apparently, Stephen King isn't the only one offing himself in his novels. Kinky Friedman has committed literary suicide in his new book Ten Little New Yorkers. And that's just the prologue. Personally, I'm waiting to see if these authors start murdering other novelists within their novels. After all, suicide seems a cowardly way to go. Even in fiction.
• The Godfather is being turned into a video game by Electronic Arts. What's even more frightening is that new dialogue was recorded by the actors because the sound quality of the original film was "too dated to meet today's technology standards." Even Brando spent four hours in a booth shortly before dying, perhaps the most regrettable final role for a great actor since Orson Welles' appearance in The Transformers: The Movie. Of course, when the inevitable "Sonny Lives (with Cher)!" MOD comes out, perhaps it might be worth a few hours of gameplay.
• No love for Brion Gysin? One of Burroughs' seminal influences is getting a theatrical revival in a musical homage entitled The Dream Machine. In a related story, the story of Scooby and Shaggy's literary influences will be developed into a play called The Mystery Machine, whereby Captain Underpants will receive its long-owed dues. Sadly, Scrappy Doo proved too small and intricate to reproduce for the stage.
• USA Today offers a roundup of debut novels.
• Bad enough that Taylor "Sentimental Hack" Hackford absconded with the legend of Ray Charles. Now he's meddling with Charles Bukowski, with the humorless Sean Penn in tow. Can we all agree that if you have An Officer and a Gentleman and Against All Odds on your resume that you're forbidden from weighing in on literary icons? The thing that kills me about today's literary documentaries is that they seem to avoid the real interesting people. Where, for example, is director Barbet Schroeder, who once threatened to cut off his fingers if he couldn't make Barfly?
• And this month's literary criminal is Ronald Jordan, who apparently stole some 50,000 books and resold them at street stalls.