Idea for a good novel or a good book

Let me preface this by saying while this idea has been perking in my mind for a long while, it is still as half-baked as an indigestible potato. But I'll leave that for you to decide...

Okay, so I got an idea…

In this instance, all the characters will be idealized, or semi-fictitious, versions of themselves.

Let’s say you have me living in New York and I get sacked from my job—we’ll figure out the whys and wherefores of that as we go. It’s a cold, grey late afternoon in Manhattan, about 4:45 PM, which is when the streetlights take hold anyway. I’m wearing a black suit with a white shirt and red tie (I have seven copies of this suit) and a topcoat. To drown my sorrows, I walk, or rather stumble, into the W Tuscany Hotel on East 39th Street. While nursing a cup of green tea at the Audrey Café and Lounge where I’m more or less alone, I bury my face in my hands. How am I going to tell my mother, my family that I’ve been sacked. The economy is stinking, and it’s that time of the year where the only ones to be had are seasonal jobs in call centers where you’re on the receiving end of phone calls from condescending housewives who seem baffled that you don’t know what a sham is. I pick up what I think is a napkin to wipe a tear from my eye. But I notice that it’s a satin handkerchief in my hands, pink in color. Embroidered in white are the initials: IAH.

No less a personage than Isabelle Huppert, arguably the greatest actor France has ever produced, has taken the seat next to me. As it turns out, I’ve seen most of her oeuvre over the years, but rather than fall all over myself fawning and babbling about how much I love Isabelle, I’m just grateful she turned up. It’s almost as if Isabelle has materialized from the mist. She gets me talking about what we’re doing and I tell her my tale of woe. As it happens, Isabelle has only arrived in New York the previous night. She and Fanny Ardant are doing a play at Circle in the Square, beginning a nationwide tour. As it turns out, neither Mmes. Huppert nor Ardant have seen America beyond New York, Los Angeles or Chicago (Remember, these are fictitious versions of the two great French actors.) So, over dinner at the adjacent Icon Restaurant, I meet Fanny, who is as gorgeous and vivacious in person as I’ve known her from performances in Ridicule and 8 Women, among others. In the private dining room, we consummate a deal for me to drive them across country for the six months they are performing the play at various venues.

Now I have the kernel for what could be some brilliant work. So now here are a few questions:

n Should I let there be a conflict among the three of us? If so, what shape would it take? If not, will the reader want to keep reading, or the viewer keep watching?

n Do I want this to be a novel or a film? It’s one thing to read about Huppert and Ardant acting, quite another to watch them, esp. Madame Huppert.

n It would be very politic to let Huppert and Ardant at least look at a working outline and get their blessing before I allow the drafts to begin. If they disapprove of what I’m doing, I’ll change the project to suit two other actors. In theory, I could do this with Mirren and Rampling, or any number of other actresses of a certain age.

-- The plot seems naturally predisposed to be told in first person. The way I work with people is very intimate, very trusting. Judging from their work, this may go over with Fanny, maybe more so than it would with Isabelle, who has a far more scorpion temperament. If you’ve ever seen The Piano Teacher or Merci Pour la Chocolat, particularly the latter film’s final scene, you know what I mean. The point is that if I tell the story from the wrong point of view, I’m screwed. (See I Heart Huckabees).

--What sort of things would I have Isabelle and Fanny do between performances? Surely I don’t want them to merely sightsee. Maybe one thing would be to take them to a large suburban mall like the one I’m sitting in as I compose this memo. The idea would be to see how many people recognize the two titans as they take a lap around the mall. That would be interesting. I’m open to suggestions.

--If I made a film out of this, who would direct? Claude Chabrol? Francois Ozon? Patrice Leconte? It would help to have a French filmmaker.

--A good running gag would be to have Huppert in constant argument with her husband Ronald Chammah about something or other. Or maybe to have Ardant prattle on about life with Truffaut or working with Depardieu…incessantly.

What do you think?