Paging Demi Moore…

Updated on December 2, 2009 By Ken Begg 16 Comments

Publishers Weekly reviews Hester by Paula Reed, an upcoming sequel to The Scarlet Letter. In Reed’s envisioning, Hester takes her daughter Pearl back to England, where “…Hester reunites with a childhood friend whose husband is an ally of Oliver Cromwell, and when Cromwell learns of Hester’s magical ability to see other people’s sins…”

The reviewer also notes that “[I]t’s hard to imagine Hester using a word like “cock”…”

Well…yes.

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  • fish eye no miko

    and when Cromwell learns of Hester’s magical ability to see other people’s sins

    Oh, for the love of…

  • Ericb

    “…Hester reunites with a childhood friend whose husband is an ally of Oliver Cromwell, and when Cromwell learns of Hester’s magical ability to see other people’s sins…”

    He hangs her for witchcraft … the world’s shortest sequel.

    But seriously, leave Nate’s characters alone.

  • Toreen

    Since when did Hester have any powers? The only sin she could see was Pearl’s father’s, and that’s only because she was part of that. There was no magic in the whole book!

  • Ericb

    Well, considering the fact that they even thought that making a sequel to The Scarlet Letter was a good idea means that they couldn’t have cared less about the integrity of Hawthornes original story.

  • Reed

    In Reed’s envisioning, Hester takes her daughter Pearl back to England…

    I had nothing to do with this. I’m pretty sure it’s a work of Art. That bastard!

  • Mr. Rational

    Oh. Dear. What a horrible idea.

  • KeithB

    I would not have been surprised to read this synopsis in The Onion.

    We need a movie term equivalent to Poe’s Law. Soemthing like you cannot imagine a silly premise that someone won’t try to turn into a movie.

    Based on the post a few days ago should we call it Eddie Murphy’s Law? 8^)

  • Charles Goodwin

    Mother of God…

    I have to agree with Ericb, the Puritans were notoriously unsympathetic to those possessed of any kind of “magical ability”.

    The reviewer also notes that “[I]t’s hard to imagine Hester using a word like “cock”…”

    It’s hard for me to imagine any circumstance in which Hester would be inclined to use a word like “cock”, unless she was referring in some way to a male chicken…

    Mother of God…

  • KeithB

    You might say the same thing about Julia Childs, but she used that word, and in a movie no less!

  • Well, Julia Child wasn’t raised a Puritan in the 1600s, though.

  • According to the review, Hester also “describes postcoital “shudders of pleasure.”” Maybe she talked like that while appearing on The View.

  • Fanfiction… it’s not just for Avatar: The Last Airbender and House MD fans anymore!

  • Brandi

    We need a movie term equivalent to Poe’s Law. Soemthing like you cannot imagine a silly premise that someone won’t try to turn into a movie.

    Call it Graydon’s Law for Graydon “Uninvited” Clark.

    [Mind you, this sounds like it’s a silly book without having yet gotten movie options.]

  • KeithB

    Yeah, I saw the “Demi Moore” part and glossed over the “Publisher’s weekly” part.

    But we need a Poe’s Law for books, too. 8^)

  • Oh sweet Lord….

    The sad part is, we can probably expect a lot of this to happen now. Pride and Prejudice (and Zombies) and Sense and Sensibility (and Sea Monsters) set the stage….

    And then Dracula: The Undead came out. I give them credit for (a) apparently writing a good book and (b) actually being part of the Stoker family – the sequel was actually written so that the Stoker family could reclaim ‘best claim’ over the original character from Universal, and apparently it’s very good, based in part off of Bram’s old notes.

    But it means that, from now on, you’ll have *lots* of people putting out half-assed “sequels” to classics that were meant to stand alone.

    You know – kinda like Hollywood.

  • Actually, it’s hardly the first. Remember Scarlett, the book put out some time ago that was a sequel to “Gone With the Wind”? And there was a book written too that followed “Pride & Prejudice”‘s Mr. Darcy when he wasn’t mooning around Elizabeth Bennett. Both were about as awful as you can imagine.