War of the Roses: Movie Edition - Softcover

Adler, Warren

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451166566 ISBN 13: 9780451166562

Publisher: Signet, 1989

Synopsis

Jonathan and Barbara Rose seem to be the perfect couple--successful and devoted--until Jonathan collapses with what appears to be a heart attack and the underlying ugliness of their relationship erupts

About this title

From the Author

The idea for The War of the Roses came to me at a dinner party in Washington in 1979. One of our female friends was dating a lawyer, who was her guest at the party. At some point, he looked at his watch and announced that he had to get home or his wife would lock him out of the house. When asked why, he said he was in the process of getting a divorce and was living under the same roof and sharing facilities and that part of the agreement was a strict set of rules on comings and goings and the division of living quarters.
It is always difficult to describe to people, how a story idea enters a novelist's consciousness. By the time I began to write The War of the Roses I had already published nine novels and my antenna must have been feverishly searching for a new idea. The dilemma expressed by this dinner guest might be called the "eureka" moment.
The story quickly formed in my mind and, with the exception of a brief conversation with a Judge who was an expert in domestic law, I did no other legal research on the subject of divorce. Oddly, many people have become convinced, including that dinner guest that somehow I had burrowed into the legal files of their various divorce actions and I cannot tell you how many times over the years people have accused me of "stealing their divorces." I tried countering this accusation by explaining that a novel's story grows out of a novelist's imagination and the amalgamation of his or her observations and experiences, but to little avail.
For some reason movie interest was immediate and the book was quickly optioned to Richard Zanuck and David Brown, two wonderful producers for whom I wrote the first script. For unknown reasons, which is the only way I can describe the Hollywood process, they could not put the movie together and the book and script were re-optioned by yet another creative producer James L. Brooks who had read the script first, then the novel and in the end produced the movie.

From the Inside Flap

The Book that inspired the blockbuster hit The War of the Roses starring Kathleen Turner, Michael Douglas and Danny DeVito.

Edition details

• Publisher: Signet
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0451166566
• ISBN 13: 9780451166562
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 1