On Monday, 15 July, the LRB in partnership with MUBI screened Kelly Reichardt’s film ‘First Cow’ at the Garden Cinema as the latest in a series of events exploring the art of literary adaptation. Jonathan Raymond, who co-wrote the screenplay and is the author of the novel it’s based on, introduced the film.
There wasn’t a cow in the book. The Half-Life, my first published work of fiction, was loaded with native plants, psychedelic drugs, overheard bus conversations, composited friends and family members, some of whom still bore the names they carried in reality. But there was no cow.