Sofia Coppola to Bring Memoir About Gay Dad to Big Screen

Some good news for the new year: Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, Alyssia Abbott’s memoir of growing up in 1970s and 80s San Francisco with her single gay dad, is becoming a feature film directed by Sofia Coppola.

Fairyland describes Abbott’s childhood in the in the San Francisco of Harvey Milk and the burgeoning gay rights movement, where she and her father moved after her mother died. Her newly out dad tried to support himself and his daughter as an editor and poet, becoming a leading figure in the New Narrative poetry movement and struggling to be a good father. She gives us a rare look at growing up with a gay dad during that era, and shows how she “learned to move between both worlds” — that of her father’s friends and colleagues and that of her straight friends and teachers at school. She extends the tale through her college years and the long-distance relationship she and her father maintained, as well as the impact of his AIDS diagnosis on both their lives. (For more, see my earlier post.)

Deadline reports that Coppola (Lost in Translation; The Bling Ring) will be adapting the work with Andrew Durham, and producing it with her brother Roman Coppola. I’m very excited about this — I think she’ll bring a good eye to the project. No word yet on who will star. If you’ve read the book, who would you choose?

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