Arts & Entertainment

Hollywood Producers Adapting Former Aberdeen Resident's Novel to Big Screen

Caren Lissner's 2003 novel "Carrie Pilby" is being made into a movie.

By Zak Koeske

A trio of female Hollywood producers are planning to make a movie out of resident Caren Lissner's chick lit novel about a socially awkward 19-year-old girl's attempts to navigate New York City after graduating early from college.

Lissner, a longtime Hoboken resident who grew up in Freehold and Matawan/Aberdeen, published “Carrie Pilby” in 2003 to critical acclaim, but its success has remained largely underground for the past decade.

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Seasoned producers Suzanne Farwell (“It’s Complicated” and “Something’s Gotta Give”), Susan Johnson (“Mean Creek”) and Susan Cartsonis (“What Women Want”) are hoping to change that. 

The trio would like to begin shooting in New York late this fall on an approximately $2.5 million budget, Lissner said.

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Johnson, who was turned on to the novel by Farwell and will make her directorial debut with “Carrie Pilby,” said the depth of the title character impressed her.

“I've always wanted to find a female Holden Caulfield,” she said, referencing the iconic protagonist of J.D. Salinger's classic, “The Catcher in the Rye”. “Carrie is brilliant, fragile, funny, conscious, inquisitive and brave enough to say the things we wouldn't dare. My primary goal is to make a movie about a female character that men AND women will want to see."

Cartsonis said she was similarly excited about transforming the novel into a major motion picture.

“You know when a writer has a voice that's like hearing your favorite song for the first time or meeting someone who's destined to be your best friend?” she said. “I've gotten that feeling a few times before: as a kid reading ‘Harriet the Spy’ and as an exec reading the script of ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’”

Lissner said she always thought her first novel could be the basis for a movie or television series, but had never seriously tried getting it into the hands of entertainment industry executives.

“I was approached unexpectedly about it last year, and it's pretty exciting that it was from some people who are very successful in the industry.” she said. “Somehow, it found its way to Suzanne Farwell, the producer of "It's Complicated" and other big budget films. She read it at the time [it was published] and loved it. Last year, she contacted the agent who handles the film rights for the book.”

Lissner said her involvement in the actual production will be limited, but that she’s confident the producers and a screenwriter hired to adapt the novel will do “Carrie Pilby,” justice on the big screen. 

“I have read and revised and re-read my novel so many times that I think someone with fresh eyes will do a great job adapting it to the screen,” Lissner said. “Suzanne, Susan and Susan really seem excited about it, so I have full confidence in how they translate the story.”

The powerhouse producing trio has turned to crowd-sourced funding platform Kickstarter to drum up interest in the project and raise the first $50,000 of the film’s budget in an attempt to show larger investors that it can attract a following on the micro level. 

Their campaign went live on June 17 and has raised $22,326 of its $51,650 goal to date. Public backers can donate anywhere from $5 to $10,000 and will be awarded with prizes, film memorabilia, a chance to go on set and even the chance to offer feedback at test screenings based on the amount they give.

"Every bit helps," said Lissner, who works as the editor-in-chief of Hudson County’s only weekly newspaper, The Hudson Reporter, when she isn’t writing novels and short stories.

Lissner has not yet tried to find a publisher for her novel in progress, “In For the Winter,” about a young woman who drops out of college to pursue a writing career, but said she’s keeping her fingers crossed that any attention the movie receives will help her find one.

“If the ‘Carrie Pilby’ movie gets made, it probably will give me a little more license to work on my other creative projects,” she said.

To learn more about the film and its producers, visit the Kickstarter page or the movie's official website.


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