Jake Gyllenhaal to star in A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions series

A Suspense Novelist's Trail of Deceptions' TV adaptation will centre on an unreliable narrator who nurses brain tumours he does not have and mourns family members who are not dead while preying on people's sympathy to get away with almost anything.

Hollywood star Jake Gyllenhaal will headline Annapurna TV’s upcoming series based on Ian Parker’s 2019 New Yorker article A Suspense Novelist’s Trail of Deceptions. Writer-director Janicza Bravo is working on the series adaptation of the article which focused on the life of former book editor Dan Mallory, reported Deadline.

Mallory found fame after his debut novel The Woman in the Window, written under the pseudonym AJ Finn, topped the New York Times Bestseller list in 2018. In Parker’s article, the author was accused of fabricating aspects of his life, including that he lied about earning a doctorate from the University of Oxford, suffering from a brain tumour, losing his mother to cancer, and losing his brother to suicide.

The series adaptation will centre on an unreliable narrator who nurses brain tumours he does not have and mourns family members who are not dead while preying on people’s sympathy to get away with almost anything.

Bravo will pen the pilot episode in collaboration with Brian Savelson. “What may have started out as my dog ate homework turns into my mother died of cancers, my brother took his life and I have a double doctorate. Our protagonist is white, male and pathological. There is a void in him and he fills it by duping people. He’s a scammer. The series examines white identity and how we as an audience participate in making room for this behaviour. Getting to partner with Annapurna and Nine Stories is a gift and I am most thrilled for what lies ahead,” Bravo said.

She will also executive produce the series along with Riva Marker for Nine Stories as well as Annapurna’s Megan Ellison, Sue Naegle, Sammy Scher, and Susan Goldberg.