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"Parts Of It" Netflix Does Not Blindly Follow The Book. Author Karin Slaughter Could Not Be Happier.

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Gathan

Karin Slaughter's thriller 2018 "Her Hours" is almost impossible to break away, but that does not mean that it is quite suitable for adaptation. While the novel begins with a fascinating scene in which a lovely mother from the suburbs sends an active shooter with the dexterity of a trained assassin, much of the story unfolds in the minds of her daughter, 31-year-old Andy, when she sets off. travel to solve the puzzle of her mother's split past. Andy finds out that Laura Oliver, the speech therapist who raised her, has a lot to hide.


Shots are heard, and the daughter's world changes forever in "Pieces of Her"


Netflix's new eight-episode adaptation of Tony Colette as Laurie and Bella Heathcott as Andy regularly deviates from the original: a horrific plot-triggering encounter is sadly less boring than the novel; one main character is added; and one villain, securely imprisoned in a book, is left free instead. But, as Slaughter explained a couple of days before the series premiered on Friday, the spirit of the novel remains intact. This was a huge relief for the author, whose nervousness over the show could only be relieved by hours on the treadmill. During a phone call from her home in Atlanta, Slaughter talked about her role in the new series and why she thinks it works so well.


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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.


Q: To what extent, if at all, did you participate in the creation of the series?


A: I was involved as much as I wanted to, because it's not my field of knowledge, but I was happy to learn something new, because I'm just interested in everything. I was more involved in being a resource for the question "Why did this character do this?" Or, "What were you thinking when it happened?" Or "What was your motivation?" And I had to read scripts, and I had to be on set for one day. It was very cool. It was in downtown Atlanta. It was 100 degrees, and we were mostly outside, and Bella, one of the great people on the show, said, “Oh, well, Savannah will be better, right? Because it's humid heat? ” And I said, "Well, if your skin is burning."


Question: You mentioned that you are interested in learning something new about creating a series. Is something coming to mind?


A: So Minki [Spiro] is the director of all the episodes. And you know, she's a very short person like me. So we both looked at all these big guys arguing about it all on set, but they used cars with matchboxes on the table to show where the cars were going. And, you know, here we are with all this sophisticated equipment, computers and cameras, and they're literally using matchboxes. I love such details.


Q: You may be able to use this for one of your next novels.


A: I will leave Mike Connelly to write about the world of Los Angeles. But yes, it was really cool to just see how they work with extras. And you know, there are hundreds of people on the set for this thing that was in my head when I wrote it in my pajamas a few years ago.


Lots of great thrillers this month. Here are the top five.


Q: What really struck me about the series was how similar it was and how different it was from the book, so different that I wasn't sure what would happen even when I was reading the novel.

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