Here's Cassie having a breakdown at the grocery store, then confronting her husband, Charlie, about it… and then, trying to overdose... before she is brought to the hospital and gets locked in the psyche ward, or "the cracker factory" as she calls it.
The two-book set -- the re-release of the 1977 book this movie is based on, THE CRACKER FACTORY, and our brand new sequel THE CRACKER FACTORY 2 -- will be available as a set on Amazon next month. Our distributor just started offering this option of multi-volume sets and I am beyond excited to see this COLLECTOR'S SET packaged together.
Fans are coming out of the woodworks (actually, the internet) -- "Do you know Cassie Barrett?"seems to be a question many recovered alcoholics, and those still on the path, resoundingly respond, "YES!" And everyone is excited to learn what Cassie (Natalie Wood's character) has been doing over the last four decades. I keep being asked, "Is it fiction?" And I laugh, "It's a thinly veiled semi-autobiographical novel. Both books are fiction... but you have to read Book #2 to see the unveiling of the author's real world in Book #1.
To complement the one-of-a-kind structure of the writing, I've taken my creative license on the interior of this one. Literally, and visually, it is a screenplay within the screenwriter's memoir. I have a personal affinity to books in which the author discusses their writing career, reflecting on the actual publishing of their work, and oh-my-gosh the making of their book into a movie!
The author's wild Hollywood career since the release of her first book is mind-blowing... even though there is a generation not familiar with her work, (She wrote and produced Matlock starring Andy Griffith, Perry Mason starring Raymond Burr, and Father Dowling Mysteries starring Tom Bosley and Tracy Nelson. She then created Diagnosis Murder starring Dick Van Dyke) there's a bridge between the books, and the audience, because of the timelessness of the story, and of alcoholism and addiction. The character from the 70's movie played by Shelley Long could have easily been depicting a current-day Lindsay Lohan, and the author's memoir of big-network politics and extra-curricular affairs could be lifted from a current script of Entourage!
