Aug 05, 2009 Filed Under: News & Rumours,The Starter Wife Comments (0)
Just in time for summer’s dog days, author Gigi Levangie Grazer has come out with a deliciously trashy beach read. Pull up the chaise lounge and dig in.
The novel (her fourth), Queen Takes King (Simon & Schuster, $25.99), follows the world of upper-tier Manhattanites, centering on socialite Cynthia Power’s divorce battle with her philandering husband, Jackson.
Grazer knows this topic well. She’s the ex-wife of Hollywood producer Brian Grazer (Apollo 13) and wrote about their me$$y divorce and aftermath in 2006′s The Starter Wife, which became a Lifetime series starring Debra Messing. It’s about a woman having to begin again after being dumped for a younger starlet.
Will Queen head to TV, too?
“Miniseries, movie. I’ll take anything,” jokes Grazer from her native Los Angeles, where she lives with her two sons. “It’s like finding a gold mine in your back yard. It just doesn’t happen.”
OK, hypothetically, if it did, who would play the cad?
“George Clooney — but that’s just because I want to spend time in a room with him,” she says.
Grazer actually found inspiration for the book by meeting Donald Trump (“incredible work ethic and obviously larger than life”) and thinks in order for the story to work, you have to feel for the louse.
“His little vulnerabilities — losing hair, gaining weight — make you not hate this guy so much,” explains the 45-year-old writer. “I could see someone like Hugh Jackman. He can play narcissistic but charming.”
And the female lead?
“Sandra Bullock, maybe. Kate Walsh. Lighter would be Kate Hudson or Debra Messing. I wish I had her height — and her feet,” she says.
But it’s OK if Queen goes no further than the shelves.
“I’m not that writer who hangs out on sets, I have nothing to do there,” she says. “I’d rather be home.”
