Playwright Christopher Adams to Adapt Screenplay for Undiscovered LGBTQ Classic ‘Finistère’

Christopher Adams

 

Playwright Christopher Adams to Adapt Screenplay for Undiscovered LGBTQ Classic ‘Finistère’

By Matt Donnelly
Variety : April 20, 2022 12:52pm PT

 

"Playwright Christopher Adams has been tapped to pen a screenplay based on the novel “Finistère.” While not widely known, the novel is a groundbreaking early tale of a gay man who falls in love with his tennis instructor at a French boarding school in the 1920s. It was written by Fritz Peters, whose entire catalogue was recently acquired by Hirsch Giovanni Entertainment. ... Adams is a noted English playwright who recently adapted the limited series “Aubade” for FilmNation. That series is based on a controversial 1957 queer Northern Irish novel [by Kenneth Martin]."

David by Eric Gill

David (1926)
Eric Gill (English, 1882-1940)
Intaglio print on paper
111 x 70 mm
The Tate

Leopard in the Grass by Desmond Stewart

London : Euphorion, 1951

The setting for Leopard in the Grass is Cyropolis, Media in the years after the second World War. The British have relinquished control of the Middle-Eastern country to the native peoples but still have a significant presence in business and industry. 

John Stirling, a young British archaeologist has arrived in Cyropolis with the intention of working for the local government on archaeological digs. The locals however, think of an archaeologist as the thinnest euphemism for British agent.

John meets Sophie Abbas, a Jewish divorcée returning home from the United States and they quickly fall into a sexual relationship. While Sophie is looking for a relationship, John seems to enjoy the sex for what it is but isn't interested in attachment. Instead, he often thinks of the relationships he had with other boys during his school days. 

Owing to Britain's former colonization of the area, British citizens living in Cyropolis continue to hang together within their own enclave and within their own clubs. It becomes clear to John that he is expected to follow along.

When John finds himself in the middle of a political demonstration on the streets of Cyropolis, he is rescued by a young local and brought to his employer's car. John becomes friends with Q, the gay British artist who saved him. Q hasn't joined with the others in their clubs and has been ostracized because they believe he has 'gone native.' To be clear, it isn't the fact that Q is gay that is a problem for the other British citizens, for there are others who are as well, but it's his embrace of the local culture that seems to be the issue.

When Nimr, a Bedouin man who Q took in as a child (and seems to have had a sexual relationship with), returns after having been dismissed by Q in favor of a younger choice, Q, Sophie, and John find themselves in the middle of a drama that is both personal and illuminates the terrible consequences of colonialism.

Bibliographies & Ratings: Cory (III); Garde (OTP, a**); Mattachine Review (III); Young (3645)

Bibliographies & Ratings II: Gunn (British 45a)

Jerry (Jared French) by Paul Cadmus

Jerry (Jared French), 1931
Paul Cadmus (American, 1904-1999)
Oil on Canvas
Toledo Museum of Art

 

Riding by H. S. Cross

New York : Fox Books, 2008

As mentioned in an earlier post, Riding by H.S. Cross is an early version or draft of her novel, Grievous (2019). While Grievous tightens up the story and improves the writing, some of the original structure of Riding is unfortunately lost. The major headings of Lent, Easter, St. Stephen's (appearing at Trinity in Grievous), Summer, Michaelmas, and Christmas remain. The individual chapter titles have been dropped in favor of simple numbering. A nod to early boy's school fiction, the chapter titles suggest what is to happen in each chapter. Many early boy's school novels were originally issued serially in publications directed to school age boys and the individual chapter titles may be an artifact of this publication process. 

Below is the original table of contents from Riding. Grievous, has 57 chapters in six sections. Riding also has six sections but is comprised of 95 chapters and issued in two volumes. 

Riding : a novel, volume 1

ISBN: 978-0-6152-1366-8 — Fox Books 2008, 513p

Lent

They Longed for the Sheltering Sky

There Was a Book

Mr. Grieves Is Not Amused

Something to Remember

She Envied Her Own Pens

The Propagation of Knowledge

Cartomania

Forgive Our Foolish Ways

Eels, the West Wind, and People Like Us

The Boredom Is No Longer Exquisite

Why Does He Deserve It?

Night

Morning

Friend Indeed

Caveats

The Trial

Perfect Gifts

Triangulation

The Tower

The Doctor is In

That Hideous Recognition

The Chair Loft

Souls of Men

Easter

Passage

Curses

London

Zapped

The Channel

The Key

Paris

Mazes, Continental and Otherwise

Drought

The Weapons of Pacifists

Quicksand, With Beacons

St. Stephen's

Return

Winds of Change

I Write This Not to the Many, but to You

Code That Sets the Miles at Naught

Stratigraphy

Touch

Heartbeat, Heartburn, Heart Attack, Heartbreak

Pursuits, Intellectual and Otherwise

The Persistence of Memory

Orders of Magnitude

Patron's Day

The Exigencies of Time

The Cure

In Which the Geomaniac Ventures, and Is Lost

Progress

Pioneers

Riding : a novel, volume 2

ISBN: 978-0-615-26248-2 — Fox Books 2008, 550p

Summer

To Wake, as if From Dreaming

Irresistible

Messages, Direct and Indirect

The Quick and the Dead

Nothing Shall Be Impossible

The Lady From the Sea

Michaelmas

Rank by Rank

A World Gone Mad

Something in Their Midst

Hounded by His Adversary

Ely

Lamentation of Swans

Venture

Chariot of Fire

Experiences

The Contract

Hypnos and Son

Crime and Punishment

The Passage of Time Vexed Them

The Encircling Gloom

Orders of Magnitude, II

The Pillar of the Cloud

The World as We Know It

The World as It Has Known Itself

This Howling Insanity

Exeat

An Approximation of the Moon

Night, II

Another Gift

The Ninety-Second Day of Michaelmas Term

Keeper of a Hundred Secrets

A Kind of Mercy

The Coming Storm

Ice

As Bad as All That

What Girls Are Made Of

The Most Brutal of Punishments

Unfamiliar Sun

Christmas Tea

Christmas

The Future

The Present

The Past

Like the Wildness of the Sea

The Winters of Your Grief

And Christmas Comes Once More

Swimmer by John La Farge

Swimmer (1866)
John La Farge (American, 1835-1910)
Watercolor
32.5 × 28.2 cm (12 13/16 × 11 1/8 in.)
Yale University Art Gallery

 

Fritz Peters, Early LGBTQ Literary Icon, Coming to Screens and Bookshelves in New Rights Deal

Fritz Peters c.1965
Collection of Edward Field

Fritz Peters, Early LGBTQ Literary Icon, Coming to Screens and Bookshelves in New Rights Deal

By Matt Donnelly
Variety : February 23, 2022 12:32pm PT

"Peters’ most notable work was his second novel, “Finistére.” It is regarded as one of the first gay-centered novels to come out of the era not concerning WWII. It details the adolescence and homosexual encounters of its main character and is said to be inspired by Peters’ own life. Acclaimed by Vidal, it received an unheard of first-run printing of 350,000 copies, according to his estate.  It is also the first up for adaptation, with a screenwriter to be announced imminently."