Louise O’Neill’s gripping novel is to be turned into TV adaptation
A massive congratulations is in order for one of our favourite Irish authors, Louise O’Neill, who’s latest novel is being adapted for the screen.
The TV rights for her best-selling novel After The Silence, which was published by Quercus this past September, have been picked up by Tiger Aspect, the same production company behind Peaky Blinders.
Louise announced the exciting news on Instagram today, writing, “Some news… I’m delighted that Tiger Aspect (the production team behind Peaky Blinders, and other incredible shows) has bought the film and TV rights to #AfterTheSilence.”
“I can’t wait to see what they do with this adaption!” Louise added, alongside a series of screenshots from an interview she did with The Bookseller in which she discusses the adaptation further.
“While writing After The Silence, I often thought how cinematic it was — the bleak beauty of a windswept island off the Irish coast, the structuring of the novel around a true crime documentary, and a complex, complicated female character at its heart.”
For those who haven’t read it yet, After The Silence follows the mystery surrounding the murder of Nessa Crowley.
Nessa Crowley's murderer has been protected by silence for ten years. Until a team of documentary makers decide to find out the truth.
On the day of Henry and Keelin Kinsella's wild party at their big house a violent storm engulfed the island of Inisrun, cutting it off from the mainland. When morning broke Nessa Crowley's lifeless body lay in the garden, her last breath silenced by the music and the thunder.
The killer couldn't have escaped Inisrun, but no-one was charged with the murder. The mystery that surrounded the death of Nessa remained hidden. But the islanders knew who to blame for the crime that changed them forever.
Ten years later a documentary crew arrives, there to lift the lid off the Kinsella's carefully constructed lives, determined to find evidence that will prove Henry's guilt and Keelin's complicity in the murder of beautiful Nessa.
Speaking about the new deal, Lucy Bedford, head of drama at Tiger Aspect said, “I’ve always loved Louise’s novels, and it's wonderful to be working with her on After The Silence.”
“This feminist thriller challenges us to examine our obsession with true crime as entertainment, while also looking compassionately and unflinchingly at domestic abuse and coercive control. It is both bingeable and about something meaningful and profound. And it has the most brilliant twist at the end,” Bedford gushed.
