Author Margaret Atwood sits for a portait while promoting her new books "Angel Catbird" and "Hag-Seed" in Toronto on Thursday, July 28, 2016. Atwood is teaming up with MGM Television for plans to adapt yet another of the CanLit legend's novels for the small screen. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Vincent Elkaim
September 29, 2016 - 10:43 AM
TORONTO - Margaret Atwood is teaming up with MGM Television on plans to adapt another of the CanLit legend's novels for the small screen.
The studio announced Thursday that they have acquired the rights to Atwood's acclaimed 2015 book "The Heart Goes Last."
The story centres on spouses Stan and Charmaine, who have been living in their beat-up car after losing their jobs and home following an economic and societal meltdown.
Terrified by roving gangs, the couple enrols in the Positron Project in the locked-down town of Consilience, where they spend one month living in a comfortable house, working at set jobs, then the next month as inmates of the local prison.
When Charmaine becomes romantically involved with the man who lives in the house with his wife on alternate months while she and Stan are in prison, a series of events reveals how Positron's scheme for ensuring full employment using incarceration really works — putting Stan's life in jeopardy.
This marks Atwood's second collaboration with MGM Television. The studio is co-producing a television adaptation of Atwood's award-winning dystopian novel "The Handmaid's Tale" in partnership with U.S. streaming service Hulu.
"Mad Men" actress Elisabeth Moss and Samira Wiley of "Orange is the New Black" will star in the series slated to premiere in 2017, and Atwood is serving as a consulting producer.
The celebrated author will also have a cameo in the upcoming adaptation of her novel "Alias Grace." The six-hour miniseries will air on CBC and stream on Netflix outside Canada.
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News from © The Canadian Press, 2016