One of the autopsies of the 2016 election might be made into a limited TV series reports the NYT.

Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign by Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes (PRH/Crown; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) has been optioned by Sony’s TriStar Television.

The paper says it has become “a mainstay in dinner-party chatter in political circles since its publication.” In library circles it is doing well too, as we reported earlier, holds soared on light ordering.

It hit the  NYT  Hardcover Nonfiction list at #1 last week, slipping to #2 this week, displaced by Sheryl Sandberg’s Option B

The daily NYT‘s chief book critic Michiko Kakutani calls it “compelling”and The Globe and Mail writes that the authors “may be credited with banging the first hot-tipped galvanized spiral-shank nail into her historical coffin … [it is] an unfavourable – no, an unforgiving – look inside the Clinton presidential campaign of 2016.” Staff from the Clinton campaign are pushing back.

Deadline Hollywood reports that this would make the fourth TV project focused on the election. Mark Halperin and John Heilemann have a project with HBO. Annapurna and Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty) have one in the works they are keeping under wraps, saying only it will be “Trump-centric.” Tomorrow Studios is making what they hope will become an ongoing series, called Trump: It Happened Here.

The NYT says of this newest project that no writers or stars have been chosen for the project and a network “is not yet attached.”

Among the books arriving next week, the most eagerly awaited, based on holds are The Girl Who Knew Too Much by Amanda Quick, Dennis Lehane’s Since We Fell, which is also a peer pick (see below) and Jo Nesbø’s The Thirst, the 11th novel featuring detective Harry Hole, who will make his film debut this fall, played by Michael Fassbender in The Snowman scheduled for release on October 20.

In literary fiction, Colm Tóibín’s take on Greek tragedy, House of Names, will be heavily reviewed. Among the first is The Washington Post‘s chief critic Ron Charles who writes, “Never before has Tóibín demonstrated such range, not just in tone but in action. He creates the arresting, hushed scenes for which he’s so well known just as effectively as he whips up murders that compete, pint for spilled pint, with those immortal Greek playwrights.” Tóibín is scheduled to appear on NPR’s upcoming Weekend Edition Sunday.

The titles covered in this column, and several other notable titles arriving next week, are listed with ordering information and alternate formats, on our downloadable spreadsheet, EarlyWord New Title Radar, Week of May 8, 2017

Media Magnets

The Road to Camelot: Inside JFK’s Five-Year Campaign. Thomas Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie (S&S; Recorded Books).

With all the assessments of the recent election, it’s useful to be reminded that the first takes on history are often revised. In The Washington Post, Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, admits, “I thought I knew everything about the Kennedy magic on the campaign trail. But to my great surprise, Thomas Oliphant and Curtis Wilkie’s new book …  brings much new insight to an important playbook that has echoed through the campaigns of other presidential aspirants as disparate as Barack Obama and Donald Trump.” The authors will be featured this week on CBS Sunday Morning.

Peer Picks

Four LibraryReads arrive, including the #1 pick for May, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine, Gail Honeyman (PRH/Pamela Dorman Books; Penguin Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“I loved this book about the quirky Eleanor, who struggles to relate to other people and lives a very solitary life. When she and the new work IT guy happen to be walking down the street together, they witness an elderly man collapse on the sidewalk and suddenly Eleanor’s orderly routines are disrupted. This is a lovely novel about loneliness and how a little bit of kindness can change a person forever. Highly recommended for fans of A Man Called Ove and The Rosie Project – this would make a great book club read.” — Halle Eisenman, Beaufort County Library, Blufton, SC

Additional Buzz: Honeyman is an EarlyReads author and was spotted by GalleyChatters in February. It is an Indie Next pick for May. InStyle names it one of “7 Books You Won’t Be Able to Put Down This Month.” Booklist stars, writing “Move over, Ove (in Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove, 2014)—there’s a new curmudgeon to love.” It is doing well in audio too; AudioFile just gave it an Earphones Award. The Guardian profiles Honeyman in their introduction to the “new faces of fiction for 2017.” The book was the subject of a fierce auction fight, landing Honeyman over seven figures (in the US alone). PW reports it was one of the biggest books of the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2015. Paving the way, Honeyman won the Scottish Book Trust’s Next Chapter Award in 2014, which supports “a talented yet unpublished writer over the age of 40.”

Since We Fell, Dennis Lehane (HC/Ecco; HarperLuxe; HarperAudio).

“Rachel is a journalist who, after her online breakdown, becomes a recluse scared to resume her daily life. She is recently divorced and meets an old friend who wants to help her overcome her fear. They fall in love, marry and appear to have the perfect life, until Rachel ventures out of the house one day and sees something that makes her question everything she knows about her new husband. Once a reporter, always a reporter and Rachel has to get to the bottom of her story.” — Michele Coleman, Iredell County Public Library, Statesville, NC

Additional Buzz: DreamWorks bought the film rights prepub and Lehane will write the screenplay. Entertainment Weekly picks it as one of their “19 book you have to read in May.” The Guardian includes it on their list of “The best recent thrillers,” calling it “invigorating … With sharply acute [characterization], this is classic Lehane … [and] bears traces of his magnum opus, Mystic River.” The Denver Post counts it as one of the “38 books we can’t wait to read this spring.” Fast Company puts it on their “Creative Calendar” of “77 Things to See, Hear, And Read This May.” It is on the spring book lists complied by The Washington Post and the Amazon Editor’s Top 20. Booklist and Kirkus star. Booklist says “Lehane hits the afterburners in the last 50 pages, he produces one of crime fiction’s most exciting and well-orchestrated finales,” while Kirkus calls it “a crafty, ingenious tale of murder and deception.”

Sycamore, Bryn Chancellor (HC/Harper; HarperAudio).

“A newly divorced woman is starting life over in a small Arizona town. She comes across the skeletal remains of what the locals think is the body of a seventeen-year-old girl named Jess who disappeared almost two decades ago. The discovery forces community members to recall memories and secrets that have been buried a long time. Readers are treated to a cast of characters with distinct personalities who, with each piece of the puzzle, form a patchwork that reveals the truth surrounding Jess’s disappearance.” — Sharon Layburn, South Huntington Public Library, Huntington, NY

Additional Buzz: It is a GalleyChat title and an Indie Next pick. Bustle lists it as one of “The 15 Best Fiction Books Of May 2017,” calling it “masterfully-written suspense [that] will draw you in immediately.” Glamour includes it on their list of “New Books by Women You’re Guaranteed to Love this Summer.” LJ and PW star, with LJ calling it “absorbing” and “gripping” and PW saying it is “movingly written.”

Saints for All Occasions, J. Courtney Sullivan (PRH/Knopf; RH Large Print; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).

“Sisters Nora and Theresa Flynn leave their home in Ireland for a new life in 1958 Boston. Each adjusts to life in America in her own way. Steady Nora watches younger Theresa, until choices made by each woman drive the sisters apart. We follow the story from 1958 to contemporary New England, Ireland, and New York, exploring how siblings and children relate to their parents and each other as they age. Novels about Irish immigrant families and their American descendants are a weakness of mine and the way this story unfolds from everyone’s perspectives is very satisfying!” — Trisha Rigsby, Deerfield Public Library, Deerfield, WI

Additional Buzz: It is an Indie Next pick for May and a GalleyChat choice. It is on the spring book list from The Washington Post as well as Glamour‘s list of “New Books by Women You’re Guaranteed to Love this Summer.” The Denver Post picks it as one of the “38 books we can’t wait to read this spring.” Elle names it as one of their “5 Must-Read Books for Your May Book Club,” saying it is for readers “ripe for a presummer blockbuster that delivers an engrossing family drama with feisty humor and transformative tough love.” NPR’s The Roundtable features it in the “Book Picks” section, calling it a “moving, unforgettable novel … captivating.” (Scroll down the page for the audio, unfortunately we cannot embed the file – if you don’t know the program, make sure to listen to the opening book-y jingle).

Tie-ins

There are no tie-ins this week. For our full list of upcoming adaptations, download our Books to Movies and TV and link to our listing of tie-ins.

The May 14 New York Times best seller lists shows three women in top spots.

The #1 hardcover nonfiction title is Sheryl Sandberg’s Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy (PRH/Knopf; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample). A book about grief, resilience, and finding a way through tragedy – with some Facebook business ethos served on the side.

Coverage is pervasive, from NPR to In Style. The Atlantic offers a feature while The New Yorker and Wired offer a mix of cultural commentary and review. Summing up much of the positive coverage, The New York Times writes “This is a book that will be quietly passed from hand to hand, and it will surely offer great comfort to its intended readers.”

The number one trade paperback title is Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (Houghton Mifflin, 1986; tie-in ed., PRH/Anchor, 2017; OverDrive Sample), rising to that position after 12 weeks on the list.

As the author modestly says, she is having “a moment.” Her 1986 book has been rising as part of a post-election wave of interest in dystopian novels, solidified by the premiere of the Hulu series,  which is airing to rapturous reviews and think pieces and has just been renewed for a second season.

Elizabeth Strout’s Anything Is Possible (PRH/RH; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample) debuts on the fiction list at #4, following strong coverage.

It was the #1 LibraryReads pick for April and made many monthly best of lists. The NYT calls the book is “a necklace of short stories” and says that “the writing is wrenchingly lovely … You read Strout, really, for the same reason you listen to a requiem: to experience the beauty in sadness … it’s certainly more grim than Strout’s previous work. It’s more audacious, too, and more merciless, daring you to walk away.”

The Guardian compares Strout to John Steinbeck, Leo Tolstoy, and Anne Tyler, calling the book “a wise, stunning novel.” NPR’s Maureen Corrigan calls it “gorgeous” and says “Strout is in that special company of writers like Richard Ford, Stewart O’Nan and Richard Russo, who write simply about ordinary lives and, in so doing, make us readers see the beauty of both their worn and rough surfaces and what lies beneath.” The New Yorker ran a feature and The Atlantic showcases Strout and the literature that matters most to her.

The great-great grandchildren of Henry H. Holmes, the serial killer featured in the best seller, The Devil in the White City, have received permission to exhume his body to confirm whether he was indeed hanged in Philadelphia in 1896.

The investigation aims to determine the truth of the legend that he faked his own death, reports the Chicago Tribune, by bribing “jail guards to hang a cadaver in his place.”

Meanwhile, the film version of Eric Larson’s true crime title, The Devil in the White City (RH/Crown, 2003), has been in the works ever since it was published. As recently as last month, Deadline Hollywood wrote that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio are still developing the project.

Scorsese told the Toronto Sun in December, “Right now, there is a script being worked on … One of the things that I had to stop for the past six months [to complete Silence] was my meetings on that script. They want me to start again in January and see if we can find a way because it’s an extraordinary story.”

Finding a way has proved difficult thus far. Tom Cruise acquired the rights in 2003 but the project stalled. We wrote about the last wave of hopes for it in April 2016. Even earlier, in 2015, we posted about the film’s long gestation period. DiCaprio has owned the rights since 2010.

The Girl with Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee and David John (HC/William Collins; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample) published in 2015 got a sudden boost on Amazon’s sales from a FOX news feature headlined “North Korea defector hails Trump’s tough stance on hostile country.” It is also building a holds list at most libraries we checked.

In 2015 the NYT Book Review included the memoir in a “The Shortlist” feature on North Korean defection books, but did not rate it as highly as other titles, citing an “emptiness at the heart of her story.” StarTribune was more positive, saying “Lee shows the terrible treatment of its people by North Korea’s authoritarian dictatorship. She also shows the price the regime pays for being awful: the loss of people like her who have enormous drive, intelligence and will.” Kirkus summed it up as “Remarkable bravery fluently recounted.”

The British press were more generous. The BBC said, “First-hand accounts of perilous defections from brutal dictatorships aren’t supposed to be funny. But Hyeonseo Lee’s pioneering memoir The Girl With Seven Names contains great humour alongside its shocking evocation of the North Korean regime’s surveillance, torture, privation and propaganda.” The Scotsman wrote “This is a stirring and brave story.” The Guardian featured a long excerpt with photos.

Her TED Talk was hailed by Oprah in O magazine as “The most riveting TED Talk ever.”

Hulu has announced that The Handmaid’s Tale will return for a second season.

In a statement the streaming service said:

“The response we’ve seen to The Handmaid’s Tale in just one week since its premiere has been absolutely incredible. It has been an honor to work with this talented team of cast and creators to develop a series that has struck such a chord with audiences across the country … We can’t wait to explore the world of Gilead and continue Margaret’s vision with another season on Hulu.”

As New York magazine notes, the renewal means “the series will move beyond the scope of Margaret Atwood’s original novel, from which it has already started to diverge.”

While the news is not shocking based on the show’s success and media attention thus far (not to mention Moss’s long term series contract for the show), it does mean the series will continue to move off book, and perhaps, as New York magazine suggests, give room for the sequel Atwood has hinted might be coming.

E! News reports it was the most watched premiere in Hulu’s history and it has been quickly swept up in popular culture with many media outlets offering the type of per episode recap usually given to established hits such as Game of Thrones.

A new adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s most beloved cases, Murder on the Orient Express (HarperCollins/Morrow; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample), directed by Kenneth Branagh, is steaming towards us, scheduled to arrive on Nov. 22, 2017, ideal timing for awards considerations.

To fit the enormous cast onto the cover of their new issue, Entertainment Weekly took the unusual approach of rotating the image, asserting, “a goodly portion of planet Earth’s most famous residents have gathered” for the shoot (we did what everyone at the newsstands will be doing, flipped it sideways).

According to the magazine, “The book’s large number of supporting characters allowed Branagh to cast stars keen to take roles that were chunkier than cameos but did not demand too much of their time.” In addition to Branagh, who both directs and plays Hercule Poirot, among the others featured on the cover are Daisy Ridley (Star Wars), Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Leslie Odom Jr. (Hamilton), Judi Dench, Derek Jacobi, Josh Gad (Beauty and the Beast), Olivia Colman (Broadchurch), Penélope Cruz, and Johnny Depp.

The mystery places the meticulous Hercule Poirot on the famed Orient Express. The train is delayed by a snowstorm, a perfect setting for murder.  Branagh tells The Hollywood Reporter that “This is not only a who dunnit and how dunnit, it’s crucially a why dunnit.”

Underlining Christie’s timeless appeal, the NYT highlighted her recently in one of their “Enthusiast” features (“an occasional column dedicated to the books we love to read and reread”), describing why reading Christie is so pleasurable:

“[Christie] captures something elemental about mysteries: that motive and opportunity may suffice for a crime, but the satisfying part is the detective’s revelation of whodunit, how and why. I never tried to piece together the clues. I vastly preferred to hear it from Hercule Poirot or Jane Marple. Why spend time with such endearing, clever characters if you’re not going to let them do their job? And while their job was ostensibly solving crimes, really it was storytelling.”

The trailer is not yet been released. HarperCollins is publishing mass market and trade paperback tie-ins on Oct. 31st.

Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Richard Ford was featured on Fresh Air yesterday, discussing his new memoir, Between Them: Remembering My Parents (HC/Ecco; HarperAudio; OverDrive Sample) with host Terry Gross.

In a long, gentle and revealing interview Ford talks about his parents’ lives and how their love for each other shaped his. He tells Gross that his somewhat wild childhood, breaking into houses and stealing guns, may indicate that he is missing the gene for guilt.

And, yet, as an adult, he has regrets. One of the biggest is that, as his mother was dying, he invited her to move in with him, but then told her not to make plans yet. He says he could see the light of hope in her eyes bloom and then die as he spoke to her.

Cheryl Strayed, reviewing it for the upcoming  NYT Book Review, writes that it offers “a master class in character development and narrative economy” and that “In this slim beauty of a memoir, he has given us — the same way he has given us many times in his fiction — a remarkable story about two unremarkable people we would have never known, but for him. Which he couldn’t have written, but for them.”

In the Washington Post author William Giraldi is less enthusiastic, “At just 175 pages, spattered with ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I’m not sure,’ Between Them is a wisp of a book.” However, he ends the review by saying, “[Ford] has attempted a gentle reckoning here, his own exertion of mercy and mourning — his parents breathe in him still — and the attempt alone makes a loving homage.”

PW, Kirkus, and Booklist all starred it, PW says it is vivid and graceful and writes “Every page of this little remembrance teems with Ford’s luxuriant prose.”

Fan sites are doing hand springs over the first trailer for the film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel The Dark Tower released this morning.

“After what feels like ages, our first look at The Dark Tower is finally here—and it takes us into another world of death, destruction, and some very fancy gunwork from Idris Elba’s Roland the Gunslinger” writes the SF site io9.

The movie opens on August 4th.

New mass market paperback editions of the first four books in series were published in 2016, when the movie had an earlier release date. New tie-ins have been announced for Book One, The Gunslinger in several formats.

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger
Stephen King, S&S
Trade Paperback , June 13, 2017
Mass Market, June 27, 2017
Hardcover, July 11, 2017

Doc Holliday is heading to the movies again in a new feature starring Jeremy Renner, reports Deadline Hollywood.

Film rights to Mary Doria Russell’s Doc (PRH/Ballantine) and Epitaph: A Novel Of The O.K. Corral (HC/Ecco), were sold to independent studio Palmister Media, which most recently released Collateral Beauty starring Will Smith.

“We are excited to re-introduce this classic American character to a whole new audience by chronicling Doc Holliday’s incredible transformation from Average Joe dentist to a man who Wyatt Earp called the ‘nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun [he] ever knew’,” said Renner and a co-producer in a joint statement. Another producer for the project said, “Jeremy Renner as Doc Holliday…f*cking awesome.”

Renner will join the ranks of Victor Mature, Kirk Douglas, Stacey Keach, Dennis Quaid, and Val Kilmer, all of whom have played the dentist turned gunfighter in previous films.

Doc won the ALA Reading List award in 2012 and Epitaph was named one of LJ‘s best historical fiction novels of 2015. Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles called Doc “fantastic” and wrote “If I had a six-shooter (and didn’t work in the District), I’d be firing it off in celebration of Doc … I’m in awe of how confidently Russell rides through this familiar territory, takes control and remakes all its rich heroism and tragedy.” The paper later called Epitaph “a remarkable accomplishment.”

Librarian Nancy Pearl discussed those novels with Russell in an interview in 2015.

This month’s GalleyChat has now ended. Join us for the next one on Tues., June 6 – 4 to 5 p.m. ET (3:30 for virtual cocktails). Details here.

Costco’s influential book buyer Pennie Clark Ianniciello, selects as her May “Buyers Pick” a debut novel, Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly (PRH/Ballantine; RH Audio/BOT; OverDrive Sample).  The novel is based on the true stories of three women from vastly different backgrounds who were involved with the Ravensbruck concentration camp during WWII.

The book was a hit with librarians. It was voted a LibaryReads Favorite of Favorites for 2016. Andrea Larson of Cook Memorial Public Library, Libertyville, IL wrote the annotation,

“This is story of the Ravensbruck Rabbits: seventy-four women prisoners in the Ravensbruck concentration camp. Using alternating first-person narratives, the characters relate their experiences from 1939 through 1959. Drawing upon a decade of research, Hall reconstructs what life was like in Ravensbruck. More than a war story, this is a tale of how the strength of women’s bonds can carry them through even the most difficult situations. Lilac Girls is a solid, compelling historical read.”

In an interview in the Costco Connection, Kelly says that after her 10 years writing and researching the book,  “I thought I might self-publish and no one would care.” Far from going unnoticed, Kelly gained a contract for it, as well as two more books, prequels to Lilac Girls.

A People magazine pick and an Indie Next selection, it did not fare so well with the NYT, which was merciless in their review, saying that the characters are all “stereotype[s] with no narrative force” of their own, adding the killer line, “it takes some doing to make a concentration camp survivor appear an ingrate.”

Nevertheless, it managed to hit the lower rungs of NYT bestseller list, cresting at #13. It has gone on to do better in paperback and is currently #6 on that list after 8 weeks.

Holds remain active at almost every library we checked with a number still running a triple digit reserve list.

A forthcoming book by Jackie Kennedy’s longtime assistant is getting wide media coverage, Jackie’s Girl: My Life with the Kennedy Family by Kathy McKeon (S&S/Gallery; S&S Audio; out May 9). The book’s title is how Rose Kennedy referred to her. The book arrives next week.

McKeon lived in Kennedy’s Fifth Avenue apartment from 1964 to 1977 and had a front row seat to history, caring for both children and helping Mrs. Kennedy. People says “McKeon’s position gave her a close-up view of the real lives behind the headlines — from Jackie’s romance with Greek shipping billionaire Aristotle Onassis and their controversial marriage, to the shattering news of RFK’s assassination in 1968.”

She was interviewed on the Today Show yesterday:

The family clearly loved her. Refinery29 says “McKeon, an Irish immigrant, began working for Kennedy at the young age of 19 … [when she left] to get married and start her own family, Kennedy and her children, Caroline and John Jr., attended the wedding. McKeon and her children were invited to Kennedy’s summer home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, every year.”

People ran an excerpt and the news media is doing their best to mine it for unknown details. The most “salacious” is that John John once had a play date with “Robert Chambers, who went on to become the infamous ‘Preppy Killer.'” Others have to do with fashion: Jackie wore a quarter-inch lift in one of her shoes to make up for a slight difference in leg length and liked her closet arranged by color. Other insider details reveal that Carolyn Bessette Kennedy was terrified of the paparazzi and John F. Kennedy Jr. “was a ‘scrawny kid’ who shied away from ‘rough-and-tumble sports.’”

The book is selling well, and holds are high, on generally cautious ordering.

Edgar Allan Poe would marvel that there is an award for outstanding mystery fiction given in his honor, and even more that the Edgar Awards,  awarded by the Mystery Writers of America, is now in its 71st year.

There was unexpected drama at the Awards banquet on Thursday, reports Publishers Weekly, when Jeffery Deaver halted in the midst of presenting an award. He was taken to the hospital, and happily, tests showed he was OK.

Among this years winners are:

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley (Hachette/Grand Central; OverDrive Sample; pbk. coming June 2017) wins the top prize, for Best Novel.

Librarians got to know this author when he spoke at last year’s AAP Librarians lunch held at BEA. His fight novel arrived with enviable buzz. In a NYT Sunday Book Review, author Kristin Hannah called it “a complex, compulsively readable thrill ride of a novel.” It debuted at #2 on the NYT Hardcover Fiction list, remaining on the list for 13 weeks and appeared on several year-end best books lists. A film deal was announced well in advance of publication, and appears to still be in development, but Hawley has been occupied with his other gig, as the creator of the popular FX seres Fargo.

The winner for Best First Novel was a LibraryReads pick last June, Under the Harrow by Flynn Berry (PRH/Penguin, pbk original; Blackstone Audio; OverDrive Sample). Below is the LibraryReads annotation from Kimberly McGee, Lake Travis Community Library, Austin, TX,

“Nora leaves London to visit her sister, Rachel, in the countryside often. But this trip is different – a silent house, a dead dog hanging from the railing and so much blood. Nora stays, trying to help the police solve the case. She thinks it might have something to do with the unsolved attack on Rachel when she was just a teen but it could be someone new. This story is thrilling and quietly gripping. We become as obsessed as Nora in finding her sister’s killer and what if he strikes again?”

Kate Summerscale, shortlisted before for The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, wins the Best Fact Crime category this year for The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer (PRH/Penguin; OverDrive Sample; pbk. comes out July 2017). It re-tells the story of Robert and Nattie Coombs who killed their mother in 1895. The Atlantic wrote that Summerscale “expertly probes the deep anxieties of a modernizing era. Even better, she brings rare biographical tenacity and sympathy to bear.” PW said it “reads like a Dickens novel, including the remarkable payoff at the end.”

A full listing of all winners and nominees is online, a great resource for both RA and creating displays.

Look out for flying pigtails. Anne of Green Gables is returning, this time in a Netflix adaptation called Anne With an E (previously titled just Anne). Set to begin airing on May 12, it gets an in-depth cover feature by the New York Times Magazine.

The article credits Anne’s enduring appeal to the sense of comfort her story offers young readers, as if they have “found a kindred spirit,” exactly as Montgomery intended.

It is intriguing, even unsettling, therefore that the new version, created by Breaking Bad‘s Moira Walley-Beckett ,introduces a grittier Anne, one dealing with the trauma of an abusive childhood, which may cause “Viewers familiar with the books and previous adaptations [to feel] that the emphasis is on the wrong syllable, while also finding something provoking and substantive in the new pronunciation.”

If what readers remember is a cheerful novel, or a romantic story, or even period frilly dresses and teacups, then buckle up. The NYT writes this new version is “much darker. Extrapolating from asides in the text, Walley-Beckett has fleshed out minor characters; given major ones back stories; drawn out themes of gender parity, prejudice, isolation and bullying.”

Walley-Beckett hopes the show will be meaningful to those who have long loved the story and those at the perfect age to meet it for the first time but she tells the NYT, “My bottom line is: Go deep and make the show worthy of watching … There are other versions of ‘Anne’ out there for 5-year-olds.”

Nevertheless, claims Walley-Beckett her version “is a highly lovable and yummy pleasure to sit down with at night.”

Netflix has released a few clips. The following shows some of the darkness beneath the surface.