Word got out today that Tom Wolf’s most recent novel, 2004′s “I am Charlotte Simmons” will be adapted to screen by writer John Watson and music video director Liz Friedlander. While it never bothers me when fine American literature is made into film, after all the best stories come from condensed 700 page manuscripts (like a demi-glaze), why does it have to be this particular book. Critically panned upon its release, “Simmons” is a droll account of a poor hillbilly girl coping with sex, class(both the homework and societal variety), and race while attending a preppy college.

The problem is, and if my math is correct, Wolf was 73 years old when he wrote this novel. Wolf did his research by talking to students at schools like Duke, Standford, UNC Chapel Hill(you get the picture), but no amount of time spent with kids 1/4 of his age could correct the awful dialect and akward situations that appear in the book. “Simmons” even won the “Bad Sex in Fiction Award” from the London-based Literary Review. So much is wrong and creepy about this novel, that nothing can resurrect it for film audiences.

Now, Wolf is no stranger to the big screen with two novels already adapted including, “The Right Stuff” in 1983 and Brian de Palma/Tom Hanks’ “The Bonfire of the Vanities” in 1990. All I want to know is why someone would choose the worst work of one of America’s most celebrated writers when some of his other classics like “A Man in Full”, remain untouched.

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