Good behavior, p.21
Good Behavior, page 21
For me, Letty’s therapy scene in Christian’s office is one of the great insights into her character, especially the conversation they have about the painting. I was thrilled when that scene translated almost verbatim into the television show.
The main plotline of “Grab” also plays prominently into episode five of season one, with a handful of key changes.
The main problem we had with translating “Grab” into our show was one of tone. Always tone. In “Grab,” Letty goes to Las Vegas and gets involved in a high-stakes takedown of a casino. It involves rappelling out of a high-rise, a scene in a trendy club, and a large, highly skilled crew of criminals ripping off a casino for millions.
But the thing is, our show is lo-fi.
Our locations are predominantly diners, shitty motels, gas stations, small towns. To suddenly have Letty pulling a job in Vegas would have been a giant violation of our tone, and we definitely didn’t want to see her rappelling out of a building.
So we kept the concept of Letty lifting a phone and ripping off a casino, but expressed it our way. She only steals a couple hundred thousand. She steals from dumb crooks. And the casino itself looks like nothing you’d find in Sin City. Our amazing production designer, Curt Beech, built the casino for episode five in the style of a cotton exchange, appropriate for the Savannah, Georgia, location.
Much of the Christian-Letty interactions from “Grab” and the idea that she brings him into the job fit snugly into the DNA of Good Behavior.
I’ve heard writers complain when adaptations change their work for the screen, but I don’t share that hostility. I love how an idea, a character, a storyline can augment, mature, and deepen as it passes through different media.
What I like most about the process of turning a story into a visual medium is that it requires more than just me to see it through. The screenwriter Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull) said, “Screenplays are invitations to others to collaborate.”
And if you want to collaborate, then by definition, others are going to bring their ideas and baggage and brilliance to your work.
What started as a short story over seven years ago has become something I could never have created on my own. As much as I enjoy writing novels and stories in the quiet of my office, there’s a part of my personality that thrives on creative collaboration, and my life is infinitely richer for all of the amazing actors, directors, and crew who have come together to help make this portrait of a woman named Letty Dobesh.
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to . . .
My editor at Thomas & Mercer, Jacquelyn Ben-Zekry, for her brilliant editorial acumen in helping me to always bring out the best of Letty. Our first project together was “Grab” and this collaboration has been one of the most impactful in my career.
My literary agent, David Hale Smith, and the gang at InkWell Management, especially Nathaniel Jacks, Alexis Hurley, and Richard Pine.
My film and TV manager, Angela Cheng Caplan, and my entertainment attorney, Joel VanderKloot.
The team at Amazon Publishing, especially Kjersti Egerdahl, Sarah Funk, Gracie Doyle, Thom Kephart, Hai-Yen Mura, Mikyla Bruder, and Jeff Belle.
Meredith Jacobson, who did a stellar job copyediting this book.
Everyone at TNT/Turner, including Kevin Reilly, Sarah Aubrey, Sam Linsky, Adrienne O’Riain, and a special bow to Martine Resnick for her extraordinary efforts and vision to help this project land.
Becky Clements and Marty Adelstein, producing partners extraordinaire.
Our entire Wilmington, North Carolina, crew, for their tireless hours spent at night, in the rain, helping us tell this story.
Charlotte Sieling, our pilot director, who set such an amazing bar of poetic noir for all of us to strive for.
And finally, my cowriter, cocreator, copartner in crime, Chad Hodge. It has been quite the ride, my friend.
About the Author
Blake Crouch is an internationally bestselling novelist and screenwriter. His Wayward Pines trilogy was adapted into a top-rated 2015 television series for FOX, on which M. Night Shyamalan served as executive producer. With Chad Hodge, he also created Good Behavior, the TNT television show starring Michelle Dockery, based on his Letty Dobesh novellas. Crouch’s forthcoming novel, Dark Matter, has been optioned by Sony Pictures, and he is currently at work on the screenplay. Crouch has written more than a dozen novels, which have been translated into over thirty languages, and his short fiction has appeared in numerous publications, including Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Crouch lives in Colorado.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2011, 2013, 2016 by Blake Crouch
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle
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ISBN-13: 9781503940499
ISBN-10: 1503940497
Cover design by Scott Barrie
All GOOD BEHAVIOR show images and videos courtesy of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
GOOD BEHAVIOR is TM & © 2016 Turner Network Television
Blake Crouch, Good Behavior
