Infinity Media has announced to Variety its plans to adapt Tawni O’Dell’s bestseller Back Roads and has hired Adrian Lyne (Lolita, Jacob’s Ladder) to direct the film version with a cast that includes Andrew Garfield (The Social Network, Spider-Man), Jennifer Garner (13 Going on 30, Elektra) and Marcia Gay Harden (The Mist, Into the Wild).
The 2000 novel made Oprah Winfrey’s Book Club selection and is described by Penguin as follows:
Harley Altmyer should be in college drinking Rolling Rock and chasing girls. He should be freed from his closed-minded, stricken coal town, with its lack of jobs and no sense of humor. Instead, he’s constantly reminded of just how messed up his life is.
With his mother in jail for killing his abusive father, Harley is an orphan with the responsibilities of an adult and the fiery, aggressive libido of a teenager. Just nineteen years old, he’s marooned in the Pennsylvania backwoods caring for his three younger sisters, whose feelings about him range from stifling dependence to loathing. And once he develops an obsession with the sexy, melancholic mother of two living down the road, those Victoria’s Secret catalogs just won’t do the trick anymore. He wants Callie Mercer so badly he fears he will explode. But it’s the family secrets, the lies, and the unspoken truths that light the fuse and erupt into a series of staggering surprises, leaving what’s left of his family in tatters. Through every ordeal, the unforgettable Harley could never know that his endearing humor, his love for his sisters, and his bumbling heroics would redeem them all.
Lyne, who also provided the screenplay, has cast Garfield as Harley, Garner as Callie and Harden as Harley’s therapist for the production, set to begin in June.
