Kennedy has just been assassinated.
A mob fixer who knows about a lot of wrongdoing has finally learned too much for his own good.
The gangster picks them up.
Credit: Brandon Michael Smith; William Morrow
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: There are a lot of places to begin withNovember Road, but lets start with Charlotte.
It was like, Uh-oh.
So I met her, and she was like, Is this what you think?
William Morrow
You think she wouldve been happier if she had left our father?
So its a completely different outcome.
But I was thinking about that early period.
What if she had taken a different route?
What if shed just made a different choice?
I didnt want it to be a foregone conclusion that leaving your drunk husband was a good choice.
At that time, it was up in the air.
It couldve been the worst choice of her life.
So its a what if?
But your own family would have been very different.
This was before me, this was prehistory.
I was always fascinated by that and what wouldve happened if she had taken a different angle.
I wouldnt be around!
But itd be interesting to see what might happen.
So lets talk about the criminal at the heart of this, Frank Guidry.
Hes a clean-up guy for the mafia.
What finally gets him in trouble?He knows too much.
Now everybodys looking for him and hunting him down.
What happens if you start realizing you like that role?
After he meets Charlotte and her daughters, they head back on the road.
I spent about five months on that and it was a total disaster.
I mean, catastrophic.
My big breakthrough was realizing hes the wrong main character.
Hes the wrong protagonist, he needs to be the antagonist.
Once I figured that out, everything else started clicking.
In the book, hes the guy who kills the guy who kills Kennedy.
I was less interested in the guy who really shot Kennedy than the guy who cleans that up.
Carlos Marcello was not going to just let that assassin go loose.
Human life seems to mean nothing to him.
I knew I wanted to just make that quick, easy, and clean.
For me, the most plausible theory is Carlos Marcello in New Orleans.
For me, it was the inciting incident for Barone, for Frank, and for Charlotte.
Its what set them off on their journeys.
As a backdrop, its an inciting incident for the entire country.
It starts with that assassination.
It really does send these ripples that cascade eventually through the country.
You also capture some of the style and music and culture of this era.
When I started reading the book, I immediately cast Frank Sinatra is Frank Guidry.
[Laughs] Thats awesome.
I think thats great, man.
It opens with him in New Orleans and hes seducing a woman and he seems so cool.
Hes even got a hi-fi stereo in pristine condition.
Im picturing this swinging, pseudo-gangster.To be honest, though, I would cast Dean Martin.
Theres that great story, which I know youve heard, where a pit boss punched out Frank Sinatra.
I believe it was at The Sands.
But there was also a casual but extreme misogyny to this era.
Frank Guidry seems to be grappling with that.
Heres a guy who treats women as objects, or as conquests or as trophies.
And with Charlotte, I wanted him to start recognizing the human being there.
Hes going to have to deal with her in completely different ways than hes dealt with any woman before.
Charlotte tells him, Everyone whos been pushed aside for so long.
Theyre sick and tired of it.
Shes forecasting something that took half a century to actually come true.
So to me, there was a powder keg there already, and this fuse was burning.
